


Grounded Lightning

by juniorthib



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Multi, Pollination, minus Enabler, post v2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2019-11-09 09:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 86,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17998961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniorthib/pseuds/juniorthib
Summary: The second semester was in full swing and life at Beacon was going great. Team RWBY had successfully put Torchwick in jail and helped to fight off the Grimm attack on the city. Now the only things they had to worry about were classes, the upcoming Vytal Festival Tournament… and the fact that they were all starting to fall in love with each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> takes place after volume 2. cinder and co don't exist. what does this mean for the plot you ask? heck if i know lmao !!
> 
> just kidding. there will be some plot but this will mostly be fluff. probably. anyways, i hope you enjoy :p
> 
>  
> 
> (also now there is new cover art by the amazing spicybon!!)

Somewhere along the walk back from the library, Blake had somehow come into possession of both hers and Ruby’s textbooks. Ruby herself was busy complaining about their workload beside her.

“I don’t get it,” she said, groaning in frustration. “History is stupid. And really hard. There’s so many names and dates you have to remember.”

“Well, it’s just a part of Huntress training,” said Blake.

“It’s dumb is what it is,” Ruby retorted with a pout. “I don’t get why I need to know that some random dude from some random town in Mistral tried to start some random revolution a hundred years ago. What does that have to do with me being able to kill Grimm effectively?”

“I dunno,” said Blake, more to humor Ruby and let her know she was still listening rather than actually arguing the point. “What would you rather be doing, then?”

“More hands-on activities. I wanna go on more missions! That’s where all the real Huntress stuff happens.”

“We just got back from our first one like a week ago.”

“I know, but still,” Ruby whined. “That’s what I’ve wanted to do since coming here. It felt like we actually made a difference. And…” She trailed off for a few moments. Blake glanced over at her, curious. “Even then, I still can’t stop thinking about how we could have done better. I’m glad we helped put the Torchwick guy in jail, and we’re really lucky no one in town died in the Grimm attack, but… the same can’t be said for those White Fang members on the train. How many of them lost their lives, and all because Torchwick was only using them to further his own plans? If they hated humans before, I don’t want to think about how they must feel now.”

Ruby was practically vibrating with worry at that point, her hands clenched into fists, brought close to her chest. Blake nudged her gently with her elbow to snap her out of it. “Hey,” she said. “There’s a lot of mysteries left to solve and problems to smooth out, but don’t forget that you’ve got a team. We’ll work through this together.”

Ruby’s frown slowly turned back into a smile. “You’re right. I'm getting carried away. Thanks, Blake.”

By then, they’d reached their dorm. Ruby opened the door and held it open for Blake, since she was still carrying all of their books. They entered to find Weiss writing an essay at her desk and Yang rummaging through Blake’s closet.

“Um,” said Blake.

Yang poked her head out, saw Blake and Ruby standing there looking confused, and grinned. She was wearing nothing except a towel. “Hey, Blake,” she said casually, and then went back to digging around in her clothes. “Did you guys have a good study session?”

“Kind of. What are you doing in my closet?”

“Uh. I forgot to set aside a clean set of clothes before I did my laundry. And then I took a shower.”

“She’s an idiot,” Weiss pitched in from across the room.

Yang just shrugged like she agreed. She pulled out a dark purple hoodie. “Can I have this?”

“Sure,” Blake found herself saying.

“Awesome. Thanks.” Yang smiled, grabbed a few more articles of clothing from the closet and then ran off to the bathroom to change.

“I’m going to go back to studying,” Ruby said half-heartedly, pulling her books off the top of the pile in Blake’s hands and heading for her bed. “Stupid random villager in Mistral.”

A short while later, Yang reappeared wearing Blake’s hoodie and shorts, the towel now slung over her shoulder. Blake couldn’t help but look her up and down, trying to stop herself from smiling. “Why my stuff?” she asked. “Why not steal clothes from Weiss, or, you know, your own sister?”

Yang snorted. “Have you seen how short they are?”

Suddenly, a pencil hit her in the face. The force of the throw sent her stumbling back several feet. Blake caught the pencil before it hit the ground and walked over to return it to Weiss.

“Thank you,” she said pleasantly, and then went back to writing her essay in silence. Behind them, they could hear Ruby struggling not to laugh.

Blake set all but one of her textbooks down on her desk and took the last one to her bed, settling into the pillows before opening it up. Ruby was right in that the random Mistral revolution they were currently learning about was really dumb, but they needed to know all about it for the upcoming test. Blake sighed and began to read.

The dorm was peaceful and quiet for a period of time, mostly because Yang had eventually left to go retrieve her laundry. Soon enough Blake had managed to lose herself in the history textbook. Her concentration was only broken when she felt someone sit down at the edge of her bed.

It was Weiss.

“Hello,” said Blake.

“Hi,” said Weiss. “Having fun?”

Blake rolled her eyes. “As always. Finish your essay?”

“No. I’m taking a break.”

“Right,” said Blake, raising an eyebrow. “You’re… taking a break from doing your homework by watching me do mine.”

“My brain is currently fried and I thought I could use some company,” Weiss said defensively. She crossed her arms and brought her legs up onto the mattress, leaning on the opposite side from Blake so that they were facing each other.

Blake glanced up at the other end of the room. “Ruby’s over there, you know.”

“I’m aware, and while her bed has yet to fall on top of me and brutally murder me at night, I don’t trust its structural integrity to handle more than one person at a time.”

They both stared up at Ruby. She looked incredibly hurt and offended.

“Can you at least look over my essay outline for me?” she asked, fixing Weiss with her best puppy-dog pout.

Weiss just sighed and held out her hand. Ruby cheered. A few seconds later, a paper airplane sailed across the room, and Weiss caught it neatly out of the air. She unfolded it and began reading intently, her serious, concentrated mode activated. Blake figured that was why she didn’t realize that she’d ended up tangling their legs together.

Weiss had begun scribbling her own notes onto Ruby’s paper by the time Yang returned, basket of laundry in hand. “Sup,” she greeted all of them at once, dropping the basket onto the ground and lazily kicking it aside. “What are we doing?”

“Work,” Weiss told her pointedly.

“Sounds boring.” Yang gave Blake a split second to try and shift to the side before she plopped down right next to her, leaning back against the pillow and sighing contentedly.

“Shouldn’t you give me my clothes back now that you have your own again?” Blake asked her.

“Nah,” said Yang. When Blake turned her head to look at her she realized just how close the size of the bed forced them to get. She became momentarily distracted by Yang’s bright smile. “Your clothes smell like you.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Maybe.” Yang glanced over Blake’s shoulder to look at her textbook. “Here, gimme that. I’ll quiz you on the chapter.”

“No fair,” Ruby cried from where she was still sitting all alone on her own bed. “I can’t believe you guys would try and have a cuddle party without inviting me.”

Yang glanced at the bed, then back up at Ruby. Then she shrugged. “There’s still a bit of space left if you want to join us.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to this,” said Blake.

But it was too late. In a flash, Ruby had rocketed across the room and directly on top of all of their legs, facing towards Yang and Blake. Weiss choked.

“Hi,” said Ruby, looking innocently up into Yang’s eyes.

Yang stared thoughtfully back at her sister. Then she propped Blake’s textbook onto Ruby’s face. Ruby, to her credit, only let out a disgruntled noise, but didn’t make an effort to move.

Weiss, meanwhile, was swatting at Ruby’s feet. “I’m the one helping you with your essay, you jerk, and this is what I get in return?”

“I’m sorry!” said Ruby, her voice muffled by the textbook.

And so they stayed that way for the rest of the afternoon. The only commotion that occured was when Ruby, with great effort and hardship, finally turned around to face Weiss so they could discuss her essay outline and also because Yang’s legs had fallen asleep under the weight of her sister. Besides that, though, the impromptu group study session actually went pretty well.

Around evening they heard a knock at the door. None of them moved to answer. They knew by now that most of the time it was someone from Team JNPR, who were all aware that they usually left the door unlocked and only knocked as a preemptive warning.

Sure enough, a few seconds later Pyrrha opened the door and poked her head in. Judging by her surprised expression, she’d clearly been expecting all of them to be dispersed evenly across the dorm. Instead, they were all dogpiled and crammed together on one bed. Pyrrha blinked.

“Hey,” she said, a bit sheepishly. “Nora is starting to approach worrying levels of hunger already, so we’re going to get dinner early. Want to join us?”

“Food!” said Ruby, trying and failing to pretend like she hadn’t just woken up from dozing off. Weiss fixed her with a glare.

“We’ll be there,” Yang called out to Pyrrha. “Just give us a few minutes to, uh, disentangle ourselves.”

“Ooh, big word,” said Weiss, impressed. Yang chucked the textbook at her face.

Pyrrha, not wanting to witness the chaos that was inevitably about to occur, flashed them a smile, closed the door, and went back to her own dorm.

 

* * *

 

The two teams met up in the mess hall a short while later. They grabbed their trays and sat down in their customary spots at the corner of the hall, across from each other. It was still fairly early in the evening, so apart from them, there were only a few other groups of students trickling in.

“So,” Nora began saying with her mouth full of food. Ren politely put his hand over the lower half of her face to block the view. “I heard from Coco that Professor Goodwitch is gonna make us fight in pairs in sparring class this week.”

“Like, against each other, or against other teams?” Pyrrha asked, interested.

“Against each other,” said Nora. “We’re apparently supposed to split up into partners and spar that way. Something about practicing for the tournament.”

Jaune groaned and planted his face into the table. “I know what that means.”

“Oh, shut up, Jaune. Your partner is literally Pyrrha Nikos!” said Nora. Somehow, she had already finished everything on her plate. “That’s like an automatic unfair advantage right there.”

“Yes,” said Jaune, without looking up. “Which means that she’s going to be spending all her time trying to keep me from getting ganged up on by you two.”

Ren and Nora looked at each other. Then Ren shrugged. “That does seem like something we’d try and do,” he said. Nora nodded in agreement before getting up to go get seconds.

Jaune groaned again. Pyrrha laughed nervously.

“Ooh. Tough break,” Yang said to Jaune, wincing in sympathy. Then she nudged Weiss sitting beside her and opened her mouth expectantly. Weiss rolled her eyes, but took a grape off of her cluster anyway and popped it into Yang’s mouth.

“Oh man,” said Ruby, turning to look at the rest of her team. “We have sparring class tomorrow afternoon.”

“I can’t wait,” said Yang, pumping her fists in excitement. “Winning against you two will be a piece of cake.”

“Hey!” Weiss protested. “Don’t be so cocky. I’ll have you know that Ruby and I have been practicing together on our own a lot. We’re a lot more in sync now than you think.”

“Is that so?” said Yang, leaning in uncomfortably close, with the biggest, most aggravating grin on her face. “How in sync are we talking, here?”

“Yang!” said Ruby, aghast.

Weiss planted her hand on Yang’s face and shoved her as far away as she could. “You are rude, invasive, and _completely_ insufferable,” she said, fixing Yang with her most withering glare.

Meanwhile, Blake, who now had Yang all up in her personal space, leaned in and grinned. “We’re totally going to beat them up,” she said.

“Damn right we are,” Yang replied gleefully, with Weiss’s hand still on her face.

“No way!” Ruby said indignantly. “Don’t you underestimate me and Weiss. You guys are going down!”

“Please,” Yang scoffed. “You barely come up to my chin. What are you gonna do, punch me in the boobs?”

“Oh, shut up! You aren’t even that tall!” Ruby finally snapped and lunged across Weiss to try and grab her sister. The three of them ended up in a scuffle, with Blake looking on, amused. She took advantage of the distraction to swipe Yang’s smoothie for herself, content to watch her get mercilessly dunked on by both Weiss and Ruby at once.

Nora came back to the table with two more plates of food to find Ruby struggling to put Yang into a headlock. Weiss had a hand on both of the back of their necks, seemingly in an effort to move them farther away from her lap.

It was at that moment that they noticed that most of the people in the hall were staring at them.

“Why’s everyone looking at us like that?” said Ruby.

“Probably because they’re scared we’re about to start another food fight,” Blake suggested.

Their table fell silent. After a brief pause, Weiss huffed and dragged Yang and Ruby back up into a proper sitting position.

“I feel like I should be getting used to this by now,” Pyrrha said with a sigh.

“Tell me about it,” said Nora. “You four are total weirdos.”

Blake slurped loudly on her smoothie.

“I like your jacket,” Jaune said to Yang, trying to diffuse the situation.

“Thanks,” Yang replied brightly. “I stole it. Just like how _someone_ stole my drink.” She jerked the glass out of Blake’s hands, leaving the straw hanging in her mouth. Blake pouted.

Somehow, the rest of dinner managed to pass by without any more commotion. Yang and Weiss were the first to leave the table, with Weiss saying something about wanting to finish up her essay, and then just dragging Yang along for the ride. Then Nora left with the rest of her team following shortly after, leaving Blake to watch as Ruby tried to cram as many last cookies as she could into her mouth.

She must have had a funny expression on her face, because Ruby paused, one cookie in her mouth and another in her hands. It was adorable.

“What?” said Blake.

“Stop judging me,” said Ruby around the cookie.

“I’m not judging you.”

“Yeah you are.”

“I’m not. I promise.” Blake became dimly aware of the fact that she was smiling. Something weird was happening in her chest. “Just hurry up. It’s starting to get really crowded in here.”

Ruby conceded reluctantly, and started piling all the empty plates onto her tray before standing up. She broke the cookie in her hands in half and offered a piece to Blake, who raised her eyebrow in response.

“It’s an apology for when Weiss and I inevitably kick your butt tomorrow in class,” Ruby told her.

Blake laughed. She took the piece of cookie and lightly bonked it on Ruby’s forehead. Ruby scrunched up her face in protest and tried to swat Blake’s hand away, but Blake could tell that she was enjoying herself.

They took their trays to the front of the mess hall before heading back to their dorm together.

 

* * *

 

Back in the dorm room, Yang was doing push-ups on the carpet. Weiss was perched on top of her back, sitting cross-legged while putting the final touches on her essay.

“How many have I done?” Yang asked.

Weiss thought for a few moments, not taking her eyes off the paper. “You just hit seventy-five.”

“Sweet.” Yang let out a shaky breath and did another push-up, doing her best not to jostle Weiss.

“Hey, guys!” Ruby called cheerfully as she burst into the room. “What are we doing?” Within the next five seconds she had somehow wormed her way into Weiss’s lap. Yang choked under the extra weight.

“Trying not to make Yang _die_ ,” Weiss said with a sigh. She tried to shove Ruby off. “I know you have no respect for my boundaries, but at least have some mercy on your poor sister.”

“Oh, fine,” said Ruby, rolling onto the floor and sprawling out next to them, staring up at the ceiling. “Why are you even doing push-ups right after dinner?”

“Because,” Yang said through gritted teeth, “I got curious how many I could do while waiting for you two slowpokes to come back.” She finally collapsed to the ground. “Alright, get off me, Weiss, I’m spent. And you’re really heavy.”

Weiss just scoffed and stood up, walking back to her desk without even looking up from her essay. None of them missed how hard she was trying to hide her smile.

Blake walked over to Yang and held out her hand. Yang smiled sheepishly and took it, letting Blake pull her back to her feet.

“Seventy-five push-ups, huh? Very impressive,” said Blake.

Yang’s grin widened. “Aw, thanks, Blake,” she said. “I swear I can usually do more than that, though. When Weiss isn’t on top of me and breathing down my neck.”

Blake laughed.

“Well, now that everyone’s here,” Weiss said, pointedly ignoring Yang’s teasing, “what _are_ we going to do for the rest of the night?”

“I have an idea for that!” Ruby called from where she was still lying on the ground. “Team JNPR said they wanted to have a movie night with us and Sun and Neptune later. So until then… you guys wanna play some board games?” She brandished her box of _Remnant: The Game_ cards.

“I’m down,” said Yang. She sat down on the carpet and snatched the box out of Ruby’s hands. “I still need to get back at you for last time.”

“In your dreams, you mean!”

Blake shared a look with Weiss as the two sisters started bickering. Weiss gave her a shrug, having already resigned herself to her fate.

The four of them settled into a circle on the floor, the board and pieces scattered in between them. As usual, Ruby and Yang dominated most of the action. Weiss had gotten a lot better, though. Blake was still confused.

Eventually, Yang and Ruby teamed up to knock Blake out of the game first before turning on each other, which Blake found hard to take offense against. She was content with spending the rest of the match just watching the carnage, lying on her stomach and resting her head on her hands. Above her, she could feel Weiss stacking Grimm pieces on her back.

“Having fun?” Blake asked her, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Quit moving,” said Weiss. She brushed aside some of Blake’s hair to make room for some baby Beowolf pieces.

A few minutes later, Blake noticed that Weiss was getting increasingly distracted. She kept spending all her turns doing nothing but fortifying her defenses while Yang and Ruby duked it out on the other side of the board.

“Hey,” said Blake, turning her head to look up at Weiss. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Weiss replied with a small frown. She was holding six cards in one hand and a single one in the other. Blake glanced at the card. The title of it read _Faunus Militia_. “Do you ever think about what they might be up to right now?”

Blake blinked. “Who? The White Fang?”

“Roman Torchwick used them,” Weiss said simply, absently twirling the card in her hand. “A human promised them justice and then not only failed to deliver on that, but also left them to die in a tunnel full of Grimm.”

The room fell silent. Yang and Ruby had stopped playing the game and were listening in now as well.

“They knew what they were getting into,” said Blake. She shifted uneasily. A few Grimm pieces fell off her back. “The White Fang… they like to preach about how sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice your life for the cause. Sure, they’re a group of Faunus who have been discriminated against, but more importantly, they’re terrorists. And what they managed to achieve with that train crash—well, they hurt a lot of innocent humans in town. Maybe they took it as a win.”

“Maybe.” Weiss didn’t look convinced. Blake didn’t feel very convinced herself.

Across from them, Ruby let out a sigh. “Well, there’s nothing we can really do about it right now,” she said. “Unless Blake is willing to infiltrate another White Fang meeting again…”

Blake winced. “I’m gonna say pass on that one. For now. After the mess I started last time, they’ll probably have increased security all over the place.”

“We’ll figure something out, guys,” said Yang, nodding confidently. “We just have to lie low for the time being.”

“Yeah,” said Blake. Weiss and Ruby echoed her sentiment.

There was a moment of silence.

“Whose turn is it anyway?” asked Ruby.

“Mine,” said Yang. She threw down a card onto the board. Judging by Ruby’s sudden frustrated cry, it was something big and destructive.

Weiss still looked a little worried, but when Blake offered her a small smile, she seemed to loosen up a bit. She nodded, looking more determined than before, and turned her attention back to the game.

Yang ended up winning, to Ruby’s chagrin but no one’s surprise. They tried to start up another game and Blake was actually dominating somehow until Sun burst into their room halfway through. He was carrying a giant pile of snacks with both his arms and tail.

“Come on!” he said, bouncing up and down with barely contained excitement. “Team JNPR already set up the blanket fort in their room, now we just need you guys in it.”

Neptune popped up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to get him to calm down. It didn’t work. He turned his attention to the room. “Hey, guys,” he said with a wave.

“Hi, Neptune,” Weiss responded, sounding unusually chipper.

“Come on,” said Sun, bumping Neptune with his shoulder as he headed back out the doorway. “Let’s go finish setting up. And you guys need to hurry up or we’re starting the movie without you!”

When they left, Yang turned her attention to Weiss, grinning. “Someone is still crushing hard on Mister Cool Boy, I see.”

Weiss opened her mouth to protest, but then she froze. Everyone stared at her, confused. “Wait a second—” she said, her eyes widening. She looked like she was having an existential crisis. “I don’t—I don’t like Neptune like that.” It didn’t sound like denial. The way she said it was very blunt, like she was simply stating a fact. Even Yang didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Um, right,” Ruby said awkwardly. “That’s… that’s cool, Weiss.”

No one said anything.

“Right!” Weiss blurted out suddenly. She grabbed Ruby and Blake by the arms and rushed towards the door. Yang scrambled to her feet and followed after them. “You heard Sun! It’s movie time!”

It was a pretty fun end to the day, all things considered. Piling ten people into a single dorm room probably hadn’t been the best idea, but they made it work. The movie itself wasn’t anything exciting, just some typical hero action flick that Jaune had picked out. They spent most of the time just talking, laughing, and throwing snacks at each other. Yang and Sun eventually roped them all into a game to see who could catch the most popcorn in their mouth. To everyone’s shock, Ren ended up winning.

Team RWBY stayed behind to help JNPR clean up their mess of a dorm afterwards, since Sun and Neptune had somehow mysteriously disappeared by then. By the time they got back to their own dorm, all four of them were exhausted. They didn’t talk much as they took turns getting showered and ready for bed.

Lights out was at midnight. By then, the four of them were already fast asleep.

 

* * *

 

Later that night Blake awoke to the faint sound of something metallic clicking rapidly. Confused, she sat up, looking up at the underside of the top bunk. The clicking sound paused for a few seconds, then started up again.

She grabbed onto the top of the bed and swung herself up, poking her head out to investigate what was going on above her.

Yang was sitting there with Ember Celica activated. She was absently spinning the rotating magazine, over and over again, while staring out the window.

“Yang?” Blake asked, concerned.

Yang jumped. She met Blake’s eyes and laughed sheepishly. “Sorry,” she said. “Was I making too much noise?”

“Not really.” Blake looked up and twitched her ears through the bow. Yang nodded in understanding. “What are you doing up so late?”

“Nothing much,” said Yang. She scooted aside as Blake pulled herself up over the side, climbing onto Yang’s bed to sit down next to her. “Just didn’t feel like sleeping.”

“Thinking about things?”

Blake followed Yang’s line of sight out the window. The view from up here really was nice. Yang sighed and turned to face Blake. “Not about anything in particular,” she said. “It just feels… weird, I guess. How we got here to this point.” She looked down at her gauntlet and started spinning the magazine again. “I knew for a long time that I wanted to become a Huntress, but I don’t think I ever realized what that actually entails. And now I’m sitting here, barely a week after stopping a massive orchestrated robbery and almost being stabbed to death by some tiny evil henchman on a train…”

Blake laughed a little. “In hindsight it does sound pretty crazy.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it.” Yang smiled softly. “I know that little girl got away. So did that… that woman, the one who saved me. I know I saw her… And I know we talked about it earlier, but I still can’t help but wonder what they’re doing right now. But I mean, it doesn’t feel like a super big deal, because we’re always getting into situations that are way over our heads. And, I dunno, now I’m just sitting here in a room with my team, with three amazing people, and I—”

Yang suddenly stopped talking. Blake looked up, confused, only to find Yang staring back at her, looking both a little intense and a little lost.

“Yang? Are you okay?” said Blake.

Yang didn’t respond. Her eyes kept darting back and forth, as if she were trying to take in every feature of Blake’s face.

“I uh—I’m sorry. I was just thinking about—” She cut herself off again. Her hand was hovering in the air, as if she were uncertain of what to do with it. “Blake, you’re really great, you know that?”

Blake blinked, surprised by the sudden praise. “Um, thank you?”

“Yeah. You are.” Yang laughed. It sounded a little breathless.

Blake didn’t know what was happening anymore, but the longer she stared at Yang, sitting next to her up on her bed, the warmer she felt somewhere inside her chest. It was a nice feeling.

“You’re pretty cool yourself,” Blake told her.

Yang stared back at her blankly, a giant dumb smile on her face. She looked like her brain had short-circuited from the compliment, which only made Blake want to do it more.

“Well, um,” Yang began in an attempt to derail the conversation, “since I’ve kept you up for this long already, do you wanna discuss battle tactics for tomorrow’s sparring lesson?”

“Not really,” said Blake.

“Why not?”

“I’d rather not do it when the enemy is currently listening in on us.”

“Huh?” Yang looked over at the other side of the room, confused. “But they’re both asleep right now.”

“That’s what Weiss would like you to think,” Blake said with a grin.

The two of them scooted to the edge of Yang’s bed, peering through the darkness at Weiss’s motionless form. A few moments passed. Nothing happened.

Then Weiss let out a huff of frustration and opened her eyes.

“Are you two ever going to learn how to keep your voices down?” she complained, pushing herself up into a sitting position.

“Honestly? Probably not,” said Yang.

Weiss just sighed and got out of bed, rubbing her eyes as she made her way across the room to Yang’s bunk. They heard the sound of a glyph forming before Weiss neatly hopped her way onto the bed.

“I wonder how Ruby does it,” she said, settling down next to Blake. “I bet we could roll a rock band through here and she’d sleep right through it.”

“I mean, she _did_ have to grow up with Yang,” Blake said reasonably.

Yang looked like she was ready to argue the point, but then shrugged, because they all knew Blake was right.

The three of them sat together in peaceful silence.

“You know,” Weiss began hesitantly, “I’ve been thinking.” Yang and Blake turned to face her, expectant. Weiss took a deep breath. “About earlier, when I said I didn’t like Neptune that way… I meant it. I know this probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to you guys, but I just—I never really thought about it until now. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until you explicitly pointed it out to me. I think I just saw him that first time and saw a boy that my f… that I was expected to go after.”

Blake didn’t say anything. Yang nodded in understanding. They both knew exactly who she had almost mentioned at the end.

“It’s cool,” said Yang, reaching across Blake to offer Weiss a fist bump. Weiss rolled her eyes but accepted, almost bashfully. “We’re all here for you, whatever choices you decide to make.”

“Thanks,” said Weiss. She was fixing Yang with a curious look. “It doesn’t feel the same, anyway.”

Yang paused to try and make sense of that statement. “Sorry, what?”

“Nothing,” said Weiss. She took a sudden interest in staring at her feet.

Blake looked back and forth between the two of them, bewildered. Tonight was apparently a night for people to act really weird and shifty. They lapsed into silence again, except now it was several times more awkward.

When it became clear that neither Weiss or Yang were going to speak up again because they were both _stupid_ , Blake sighed and began pushing herself up from her sitting position. “I guess I should try and get back to sleep,” she said. “Good night, you two.”

“Yeah,” said Weiss, still looking dazed.

“Good night, Blake,” said Yang.

Blake jumped down and landed lightly on her feet before moving to crawl back under her covers. Above her, she could hear Weiss and Yang still saying absolutely nothing to each other. Yang started playing with Ember Celica again.

She sighed again and turned onto her side. Sleep came soon after.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh btw i took the canon rules of the vytal festival tournament and beat them up in a back alleyway
> 
>  
> 
> thanks for reading!!

Morning the next day was exciting. Blake woke up first, which was weird since by then Weiss would usually be occupying the shower, and it was silent. Then she realized Weiss’s bed was empty. None of them ever left for breakfast alone, so that could only mean one thing.

She pulled herself up over the bunk bed, and sure enough, Yang was leaning against the wall, wide awake, and Weiss was passed out on top of her.

“How did you manage to get that to happen?” Blake asked, amused.

Yang just shrugged helplessly. “I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea.”

“Are you going to wake her up?”

“Nah. I’ve never seen her so relaxed before. It’s cute.”

Blake grinned. “I’m guessing you want some coffee.”

“Please,” said Yang.

Ruby woke up next and spent a good full minute staring at the scene across from her. Yang saluted her with her free hand. Then Ruby glanced down at Blake, who had been getting ready to leave.

“What happened last night?” she asked.

“I dunno,” Blake admitted. “Yang was being noisy, I went up to talk to her, we accidentally got Weiss’s attention, and then they started being weird.” She shrugged. “Do you want to come get coffee with me?”

“Yes please.” Ruby hopped down from her bunk and jumped right back to her feet, brimming with excitement. “I thought you hated coffee, though.”

“Oh, it’s definitely not for me,” Blake told her.

So they headed to the communal floor kitchen, where they found Ren making some pancakes at the stove. After exchanging brief greetings, Ruby went over and got a pot of coffee going, while Blake decided to make a bit of tea for herself.

“Yang’s okay, right?” said Ruby after a while.

“Huh?”

“I dunno,” said Ruby. “She woke you up last night? Is everything cool?”

“Oh. Yeah, everything’s cool.” Blake smiled. “We were just talking about what’s been going on recently. Nothing important.”

Ruby seemed to accept that explanation. “Okay,” she said with a happy nod. “And you’re okay too?”

“Yes, I’m fine as well,” said Blake. She found that she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Ruby and her earnest, open expression. “What’s with all the nosy questions, anyway?”

“Just gotta make sure my team’s in tip top shape,” Ruby told her with a bright smile.

“Oh yeah? How come you didn’t ask about Weiss?”

“She’s a big girl, I’m sure she can handle herself.” Before Blake could get even more lost in Ruby’s cheeky grin, the coffee machine behind them beeped.

Ruby grabbed the entire pot and an unholy amount of cream and sugar while Blake handled the tray, the mugs, and her own small cup of tea. With everything in hand, they headed back to their dorm.

Yang and Weiss were still in the same exact position as before when they returned. Blake reached up and handed Yang a steaming cup of coffee, made just the way she liked it, which she accepted gratefully.

“Jeez,” Blake said to her, watching as she took a long, deep swig. “Did you even sleep at all last night?”

“Uh, I definitely fell asleep at some point,” said Yang. “Then I realized Weiss was on top of me and I panicked. So… here we are.”

By then Weiss had begun to stir. She scrunched up her face, grumbling under her breath, and reached out blindly in the general direction of Yang’s free arm. Yang quickly realized what she was aiming for and gave her the cup of coffee.

Weiss took a sip, and then her expression soured. “Both you and Ruby,” she said with a groan. “Making things that should be enjoyed bitter insufferably sweet.”

“Hey,” Yang protested, offended. “Do _not_ compare what I drink to the abomination that is Ruby’s pile of sugar with a few drops of coffee.”

As if on cue, Ruby dumped a fifth packet of sugar into her own cup. She looked up and stared at Yang for a few seconds before offering her a sheepish smile.

Despite claiming to hate it, Weiss took another sip before handing the coffee back to Yang. She pushed herself up off of her and climbed down the bed, still barely conscious.

“I call the shower first,” she said blearily.

“You better hurry up, then,” said Blake. “Class starts in thirty.”

“Wonderful.” Weiss kept dragging her feet the whole way to the bathroom, which Yang, Ruby and Blake all found very amusing. She was usually the first one awake in their dorm, but that certainly didn’t make her a morning person.

 

* * *

 

The afternoon was also very exciting. In addition to the promised partner sparring lesson, Professor Goodwitch was ready to finally give them a few more details of the Vytal Festival Tournament.

“As you should know by now, the Vytal Tournament is not only part of a celebration to honor the peace between the four kingdoms, but also a large portion of your annual final exams,” Professor Goodwitch began, walking up and down the stage as she talked. For once, all the students in the hall were paying full attention to her. “Each year competes in a separate division. Should you pass the qualifiers, you will be eligible to participate in two different brackets: one for teams, and one for singles. You will not be graded based on your final placement, but rather on your performance throughout. So make sure to do your best, even if you do not win.”

She stopped for a moment, taking the time to cast her gaze over the crowd. No one said anything. A few seconds later, she resumed pacing.

“Also, please do be aware that _all_ rounds of the tournament will be recorded and broadcasted live across the world,” she continued. “And yes, this includes the qualifiers. The Vytal Tournament is a very popular event. If you do not wish to be watched by people all throughout Remnant, please notify me as soon as possible. You and your team will not have to participate, but the written portion of your final exam will be considerably longer. Are there any questions?”

Blake glanced around the room. Yang and Ruby seemed excited. Weiss was pretending to be indifferent. In the row in front of them, she could see Jaune shaking with fear. Pyrrha put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to reassure him.

“Well then,” Goodwitch said, tapping her riding crop against her leg. “Let’s get on with the sparring now, shall we?”

So then they got to watch as team after team went up to the stage and tried to knock each other out. After every match Goodwitch offered each pair advice and tips on how to perform better for the tournament. Overall, even if they weren’t the ones fighting, it was a very productive class.

It wasn’t long before it was their turn. “Next up is Team RWBY,” Goodwitch called out, glancing at her scroll. “Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee are up against Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. Please come down to the stage.”

Blake stood up, feeling weirdly apprehensive all of a sudden. Everyone in the hall had gone quiet and was now watching the four of them as they made their way down the steps. Yang caught Blake’s eye and flashed her a smile and a thumbs up.

She took Gambol Shroud off her back and held it tightly in one hand, checking the pistol magazine for what was probably the tenth time that day. It contained nine normal bullets and one single ice Dust-infused cartridge at the very end.

Technically, it wasn’t stealing. A while ago Weiss had left one of her suitcases filled with Dust on the shelf under the window and told them that they were allowed to borrow it in moderation. Blake just hadn’t told Weiss she was going to take some. It was totally fine.

She didn’t know why she was so nervous. Earlier before class she and Yang had a thirty second conversation about what their battle plan was. All she had to do was follow it.

It was simple. “You get Weiss. I’ll handle Ruby. Never let them get close to each other because I don’t even wanna think about how in sync they may or may not have gotten.”

“Weiss is scary,” Blake had said. It made her realize that even though they had an awful lot of sparring sessions at Beacon, this was one of the few times they’d actually have to fight each other instead of someone else outside the team.

“So is Ruby,” Yang had admitted. “But you know who the best two people at hand to hand combat on our team are.” She’d leaned in close, grinning. “And it’s not them.”

“Okay. So disarm Weiss.” Blake took a deep breath. “Alright. I can do that. Maybe.”

In terms of pure skill, Weiss was actually one of the few people in their year who came close to being able to keep up with Pyrrha. Blake liked to consider herself fast, but Weiss with her rapier was a force to be reckoned with.

And now they were standing across from each other onstage, with the entire rest of the class watching them with a lot more attention and interest than all of the previous matches. If Blake strained her ears hard enough she could barely make out the excited whispers among the students.

Weiss and Ruby were also sporting matching cocky grins, which Blake figured should have aggravated her, but instead was just making her heart feel funny things.

“Ready, girls?” Goodwitch asked them. “You know the rules.”

Blake lowered herself into a crouch, her katana in one hand, the sheath in the other. Next to her, Yang loaded her gauntlets.

“The match begins… now.”

Almost instantly, Blake heard the sound of a gravity glyph forming behind her. Before she could react to it, however, Ruby had already launched herself across the stage, feet-first, slamming into her stomach and sending them both colliding with the glyph. She fell involuntarily to her knees from the impact, and then immediately had to roll aside to dodge a row of icicles shooting up out of the ground.

So, that was fun.

She could hear Yang’s signature shotgun shells pounding off of the metal of Ruby’s scythe and their subsequent yelling and taunting, so they’d already begun duking it out. Still slightly dazed from that initial attack, she fired off three shots to gauge Weiss’s position while she gathered her bearings. Two of them missed, but she heard Weiss knock the third aside with her rapier. So she launched herself at the sound, her katana already swinging.

Blake used both her blades in a small, almost cautious chain of strikes, mostly as an experiment to try and figure out Weiss’s fighting style. That was her mistake. As soon as Weiss had finished blocking and dodging all of the hits, she didn’t hesitate to counter with her own. She was quick to gain momentum, using her rapier with graceful accuracy and speed, and soon enough Blake found herself forced to go on the defensive.

She tried to maneuver around Weiss, dodging her attacks with the help of her clones and attempting to get in a few hits of her own, but Weiss was surprisingly good at keeping up. Blake saw Weiss’s eyes follow her every movement, clearly waiting for something. She didn’t realize what until a split second too late.

Weiss swung. Blake summoned a clone to take the hit while she jumped a step back. Too late she noticed Weiss rotating the chamber on Myrtenaster to hard light dust. Suddenly, a giant forcefield formed between them, catching Blake mid-swing and sending her stumbling back. The distance and disorientation gave Weiss just enough time to generate six miniature glyphs in front of her, and with a twirl of her rapier, she began shooting glowing projectiles at Blake.

She felt the impact of every single one, centered on her midsection. Weiss and Ruby really weren’t being kind to her stomach today. Blake flew back into the air and hit the ground roughly. She coughed, trying to push herself back to her feet.

A few feet away, she heard a victorious shout from Yang followed by a cry of distress from Ruby. Not long after, Crescent Rose went sailing through the air, landing on the opposite side of Blake, far away from Ruby. Blake figured Ruby would soon be in the process of using her semblance to get it back, so she shot four bullets at the scythe’s handle, sending it skidding across the stage. Sure enough, Ruby re-materialized at the spot where her scythe had been just a moment ago, only to find it not there. The split second of confusion was enough for Yang to jump in and uppercut her sister with a shot from Ember Celica.

“Thanks, Blake!” she yelled, before doing a brutal kick in midair that punted Ruby across the stage. Ruby was yelling too, but it sounded more out of frustration than actual pain. Blake struggled to get to her feet, a process that she was forced to speed up when Weiss shot a column of fire at her.

When she finally stood up, Weiss was standing there as well, waiting for her. Blake expected to find arrogance written all over her expression, but was surprised to notice that Weiss was actually looking more supportive and patient than anything.

“That didn’t hurt too much, did it?” she asked, the smile never leaving her face.

“You play dirty,” Blake responded, one hand on her stomach. She fired off a bullet, just for good measure. As expected, Weiss parried it easily. She fell into her classic stance, with Myrtenaster pointed outwards from her chest.

Blake charged.

The second time around Blake refused to let up on her onslaught, now knowing that Weiss would only take advantage of any openings in her attacks. She began to notice that Weiss’s tactics were centered around trying to push Blake away from herself. Apparently she had deemed Blake’s swordplay dangerous enough that her goal was to knock her back just far enough so she could use her semblance to tip the scales. As she dodged slash after slash, Blake also realized that Weiss’s fighting style was very practiced and calculated. There was a basic pattern to her moves. She liked to strike once, then do a quick spin and attack again from the opposite direction.

Blake grinned and unloaded the last ordinary bullet from the magazine into the ground. Weiss narrowed her eyes. She pressed harder, and did the first slash. Blake summoned a clone to block it. Then Weiss, as anticipated, turned around, swinging her rapier from the other side. Blake jumped to dodge that strike.

As Weiss brought Myrtenaster back for a sharp stab, Blake landed on her knees, her finger on the trigger of her pistol.

Weiss lunged. Blake fired and activated her semblance at the same time. She jumped back, watching as Weiss lodged Myrtenaster directly into her newly-formed ice clone.

Blake didn’t give Weiss time for the shock to set in. She tackled her to the ground, forcing Weiss to let go of her weapon. There was a minor scuffle before Blake emerged victorious on top, pinning Weiss firmly to the ground.

Weiss’s expression morphed from surprise, to panic, to a few seconds of defiance before she gave up struggling. Blake felt extremely proud of herself. Now all she needed to do was wait for Yang to finish knocking Ruby out.

It took a few more moments before both of them realized just what kind of position they were in. Blake’s eyes widened.

“Oh my god,” Weiss breathed out. “Blake—”

Blake was frozen in shock. Luckily, so was Weiss, so she didn’t have to worry about any sneak attacks. Her mind was starting to go to places that she would never admit to anyone, ever.

“Hey, nice going, Blake—oh, holy shit.” On the other side of the stage Yang stopped fighting abruptly, unable to take her gaze off of Weiss and Blake. Her eyes transformed from red back to purple, and then she just stood there, her expression indicating that her brain had stopped functioning. Blake could relate to that feeling.

Above them, the entire hall had gone completely silent. Blake figured she would be utterly mortified if not for the fact that her brain was flat out refusing to process things at the moment. Underneath her, Weiss was struggling to keep her breathing even.

Then she saw Ruby twitch.

Before Blake could call out a warning to Yang, Ruby had let out a battle cry and dashed across the stage to pick up her scythe, retracting it into its rifle mode. With one violent, massive swing, she charged directly at her sister with her semblance activated and clocked her full on in the face with it.

Yang went flying across the stage and slammed into a pillar built into the wall. It shattered under the impact, raining debris all over her as she slumped to the ground. They all heard a buzzer sound. Yang was officially out.

The commotion had apparently been enough to snap Weiss out of her stupor, because in one swift motion she had shoved Blake off and rolled over, turning the tables on her. Now Blake was the one pinned to the ground. Her weapons didn’t matter anymore because Weiss had a tight grip on her wrists, and her pistol magazine was empty. Ruby was walking up to them with Crescent Rose in hand.

Blake looked up into Weiss’s eyes. There was something going on in her stomach, and it wasn’t from the two attacks she’d sustained in the battle.

She glanced up at the scoreboard above them. Ruby and Weiss both had roughly a third of their Aura left, while Blake herself was hovering dangerously close to the cutoff. For a brief moment she wondered if she could somehow take them both out on her own, but one look at both of their expressions quickly changed her mind.

“Yeah,” she somehow managed to say. “I give up. I forfeit.”

The lights went back on. Professor Goodwitch walked onto the stage. “Well, the match goes to Miss Rose and Miss Schnee, then,” she said. “Well done, girls. That was a good battle.” None of them missed the way she pointedly ignored how the fight had ended.

 

* * *

 

Goodwitch didn’t have a lot of advice to offer them. Most of it just boiled down to “stop getting fucking distracted by each other” anyway.

When they returned to their seats in the halls, a lot of people were staring at them, some in awe, others looking bewildered. Ever since initiation they’d slowly been gaining attention for being one of the most talented teams in their year. And now, in more recent times, they had begun growing a reputation for being the weirdest as well.

Nothing else super interesting happened for the rest of the lesson. They got to watch Sun and Neptune cream their other teammates Sage and Scarlet, as well as Team JNPR engage in a surprisingly close battle. Just like they said they would the day before, Ren and Nora focused most of their attention on Jaune, while Pyrrha spent most of her effort trying to keep them at bay. After he’d gone down, however, Pyrrha stopped holding back. Nora managed to land one solid hit on her, and Ren got a couple shots in while she was off guard, but besides that, Pyrrha won by a good fair margin.

Now classes were over for the day and they were back in their dorms. Yang was propped up against Weiss’s pillows while Weiss herself fussed over her and her bloody nose.

“How is it even still bleeding?” she said with a huff, trying to press tissues to Yang’s face.

“I dunno,” said Yang. “Why don’t you ask Ruby?”

“I said I was sorry!” Ruby whined.

Blake tried to laugh, but her aching stomach wouldn’t let her. Her entire midsection had bruised an unpleasant shade of purple. She was curled up into a ball on her bed, with her head in Ruby’s lap. “Yeah, Ruby,” Blake said, joining in the conversation. “Isn’t Yang supposed to be the powerhouse of our team? You did a real number on my stomach, too.”

“Ah! I’m so sorry,” Ruby cried. Blake didn’t even have to look up at Ruby’s expression to know that she meant it. “I got carried away. But Yang wasn’t holding back either! She was beating me up with no mercy, so I had to fight back!”

“I have no regrets, sis. I know your scythe is no joke.” Yang turned her head to grin at Ruby, which made Weiss frown.

“Stop moving around so much,” she told Yang, putting her hand on Yang’s cheek to move her back to face her.

“Yes ma’am.”

Weiss sighed, mostly out of exasperation, but they could hear the hint of affection as well. “And you’re one to talk, Blake,” she said with a faint smile. “You were consistently putting a lot of pressure on me, you know. You’re a worthy opponent. Honestly, I’m glad that we’re on the same team.”

A lot of people had told Blake she was good in the past. She was fully aware of the fact that she was one of the better fighters in their year. But somehow, hearing it from Weiss was a thousand times more gratifying. “Thank you,” she said, and she meant it.

“You looked so _cool_ too,” Ruby pitched in, a giant grin on her face. She was running her hand through Blake’s hair. “I actually got distracted for a while watching you fight. That’s how Yang gave me this.” She pointed at the bruise on the side of her forehead. “If I lose a significant portion of my brain cells from today I’m blaming it on her.”

“If I die of blood loss through my nose I’m blaming it on you,” Yang retorted.

Despite the fact that they were currently all varying levels of beaten up, the mood in the dorm was pretty pleasant.

Then Blake met Weiss’s gaze.

All the memories of the end of the sparring match came flooding back.

It shouldn’t have been weird. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal, but Blake found herself replaying the moment over and over in her head, and she couldn’t help the way she warmed up inside at the thought. Judging by Weiss’s expression, she was thinking along the same lines as her. Blake wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

It wasn’t long before Yang noticed them staring at each other. Ruby’s hand had gone still in Blake’s hair.

The four of them were silent for a long time.

“Well then!” Weiss suddenly said out of nowhere. “I think I’ll be off to… uh, study! That’s right. Studying.” She grabbed Yang’s hand and pushed it to her face to keep the tissues in place, and then she stood up, stumbling a bit in the process. “Goodbye!”

And with that, she had dashed out of the room with remarkable speed.

A few moments later, Ruby let out a sigh. “I’ll go check up on her,” she said. “You two stay here and relax, okay? Don’t overexert yourselves.” She gently lifted Blake’s head off her lap to get up from the bed and then raced out the door as well.

Now it was just Yang and Blake left. They stared at each other from across the room.

Yang let out a small laugh. “It’s pretty funny that the youngest and most innocent one out of all of us is the one who’s handling this whole situation with the most maturity.”

Blake just nodded. Her brain felt fried.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, since she had more or less stopped paying attention to reality, but eventually Yang spoke up again. “You know,” she said slowly, “it feels pretty lonely all by myself over here.”

“I am _not_ moving,” Blake told her. “Not with my stomach like this.” It was also because she was still too embarrassed to get out of fetal position, but she wasn’t about to let Yang know that.

“Alright then.” Yang grinned and got up from Weiss’s bed, one hand still pressed to the tissues on her face. She walked over and settled down, taking the place of her sister, with Blake’s head now in her lap.

Blake glanced up into Yang’s eyes and immediately regretted it, because Yang was looking back at her with the softest smile on her face.

“Stop that,” she managed to say.

“Stop what?” Yang asked innocently.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Blake groaned. Yang just laughed a little and started combing through Blake’s hair with her free hand. “Like—like I’m something special,” she mumbled.

If it was even possible, Yang’s expression just softened further. “Even if it’s true?” she asked.

Blake kept her mouth shut because otherwise she’d probably have made a fool of herself. She turned away from Yang and let out a huff. There were too many feelings running through her chest for her to process.

Yang’s touch was so gentle in her hair. The room fell quiet, and in that moment, it was just the two of them, recovering and relaxing together. Blake closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling.

 

* * *

 

Weiss was sitting alone at one of the tables in the library. Earlier she’d pulled a random book off of one of the shelves under the pretense of studying, and now it was lying open in front of her, forgotten.

There were a million thoughts running through her brain, but it felt like they were crashing themselves into walls and dissipating before they could properly form. So Weiss ended up doing a lot of nothing except staring blankly at the surface of the table.

It was a while before an annoyingly loud voice jarred her out of her thoughts.

“Sup, Ice Queen.”

Weiss snapped back into reality. Sun had poked his head into her line of sight and was now grinning cheekily down at her. He flashed her two finger guns before she groaned and turned away.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Nothing.” Sun pulled out the chair across from her with his tail and sat down. “You just looked like you were mentally beating yourself up. So I thought I’d come over and see if you were okay.”

“Why do you care?” Weiss asked suspiciously.

Sun scoffed. “What, am I not allowed to be your friend or something? That’s rude.”

“What? No, I—”

“Uh, Sun? Are you done yet?” Neptune appeared from behind a bookshelf, brandishing a small stack of papers. Then he noticed the other person at the table. “Oh. Hey, Weiss. What are you two talking about?”

“Ask your teammate,” said Weiss, thoroughly confused. “I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

“Come sit down with us,” Sun told Neptune, patting the seat next to him. “We can both be good friends to Weiss together.”

Neptune blinked. “Right…” he said. He looked about as confused as Weiss felt, but he did as Sun said and sat down with them.

“So!” said Sun once they were all settled, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hand. “What’s going on?”

Weiss stared at him. She knew deep down that Sun was genuinely just trying to help, but she didn’t even know how to go about voicing her concerns. She fiddled with the corner of a page in her book, trying to gather her thoughts.

“I don’t know,” she finally said with a small sigh. “It’ll probably sound really dumb to you.”

“Pfft, don’t worry about sounding dumb,” Sun reassured her. “Last week Neptune woke me up in the middle of the night because he thought he’d lost his favorite tie.”

Neptune groaned and buried his face in his hands. “That was not something I wanted anybody to know about, thank you very much.”

Weiss stifled a laugh. It didn’t take long for her to sober up again. “Um, Sun,” she said, “can I ask you something kind of weird?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

“Do you… like Blake?”

“Huh?” Sun stared at her for a few moments. “You mean like, like-like?”

“Yes, I mean like-like,” said Weiss, struggling not to roll her eyes.

Sun seemed to ponder the question. He glanced at Neptune, who just shrugged back. “Yeah, I guess I do like her,” he finally said.

She’d been expecting that response, but for some reason, something in her chest flared up at it anyway. It was a burning, vaguely unpleasant sensation that was making her consider socking Sun in the jaw. Conflicted, she forced herself to be rational. “Right,” she said. “Well, I guess I’m curious… how do you know?”

“What? How do I know that I like Blake?” Sun asked. Weiss nodded. The only thing keeping her embarrassment at bay was her pride. Thankfully, Sun didn’t seem to notice or care. “Hm. Well, I mean, she’s super cool, so I always enjoy talking to her. Sometimes I like talking _about_ her when she’s not there.”

“Tell me about it,” Neptune interjected.

Sun glared at him. “Shut up,” he told him. Then he turned his attention back to Weiss. “I just always wanna hang out with her, you know? Just being in her presence makes me pretty happy.”

“Well, that’s not very helpful,” said Weiss, mostly to herself. She had gone back to staring at the table again. “I can’t exactly _not_ hang out with them, seeing as they’re my teammates—” Then her brain caught up with her mouth. She covered her face with her hands, mortified. “Oh my god. You two heard _nothing_.”

Sun and Neptune were now both staring at her, looking extremely lost.

“We heard what?” Neptune asked.

“Hey,” said Sun, throwing his hands up in surrender. He seemed to understand the situation a little bit better. “If you want me to back off, I will. I won’t get offended. I just want Blake to be happy, no matter who she’s with.”

“No—that’s not what I—”

“Weiss.” The sincerity she heard in Sun’s voice shocked her. She didn’t realize he was capable of being serious. “You know it’s okay to have feelings… right? And not even the romantic kind. Just emotions in general. Quit beating yourself up over it.”

“I’m sorry,” Weiss said automatically. She could feel herself deflating.

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” said Sun, grinning. He leaned back in his chair, resting on its back two legs. “Sometimes we all need help getting the stick out of our asses.” And just like that, Weiss’s general mood defaulted back into exasperation.

“Thank you for that colorful imagery,” she said.

“No problem,” said Sun. His smile faltered a little upon seeing Weiss’s expression. “Right. Bad joke is bad. Really, though. I know we didn’t exactly get off to the best start, but… um, I’m willing to listen if you ever need someone from outside of your team. I promise I’m good at keeping secrets. Better than Neptune, anyway.”

“Someday you’ll be able to go five minutes without insulting me,” Neptune said, rolling his eyes.

Weiss smiled a little at that. “I’ll… keep that in mind,” she said to Sun, before looking back down at the table. “…Thanks.”

“I’m always glad to help!” Sun proclaimed, proudly flexing his arms. Neptune groaned. Before any of them could say anything else, a voice sounded behind them.

“Weiss?”

Weiss glanced up and saw Ruby standing there, looking cautious. She tried not to jump in surprise and failed.

“Ruby!” she said, shooting up from the chair. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you,” said Ruby, raising an eyebrow. She tilted her head. “What are _you_ doing here? I thought you hated Sun.”

“What? No!” Weiss protested. “I never hated him. I just believed his law-breaking tendencies were, you know, rather… unflattering.”

They all looked at him. He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his neck with one hand.

Ruby turned back to face Weiss, her expression softening into concern. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Weiss let out a sigh. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I’m just feeling a bit… strange, I guess.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Ruby asked, reaching out and putting her hand on Weiss’s arm. The pure, unfiltered worry in Ruby’s expression combined with how gentle her touch was against Weiss was enough to make her internally combust. She had to take a deep breath to compose herself.

“Walk with me?” she asked. “I need to clear my head.”

“Of course.” Ruby smiled. Her hand trailed down Weiss’s arm until she latched onto her wrist, and she turned to wave goodbye to Sun and Neptune before leading the way to the library exit.

Weiss looked behind her as well. Sun was watching their interaction with great interest. She glared at him, but was soon distracted by Ruby’s continued tugging on her wrist.

Once they were back in the hallway, Ruby turned to face her, beaming. “Where to?” she asked.

“Well, it’s a nice day outside,” said Weiss, “so I was thinking the gardens?”

“Ooh! That’s perfect.” In her excitement, Ruby accidentally activated her semblance and disappeared down the hallway in a flash. Weiss watched her go, waving aside a few rose petals that had fluttered too close to her face, and found herself unable to feel annoyed. She hurried to chase after Ruby.

Weiss found her inspecting a batch of roses in the middle of the gardens. “Thank you for leaving me in the dust like that,” she said as soon as she’d caught up.

“Sorry,” Ruby replied with a small laugh. “I just remembered that I’ve been meaning to show you something.” She leaned in closer to the rose bush and picked one out, then turned to Weiss, holding it out proudly in front of her.

Weiss raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Ruby, that is a flower,” she said, amused.

“Yeah, but look at it.” Ruby grinned and angled the rose so that Weiss could see the inside of the petals more clearly. “It’s red and white. Just like you and me. It’s like it was made specially for the two of us.”

“That’s…” said Weiss, at a loss for words.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Ruby finished for her. “Here.” She pressed the rose into Weiss’s hands. “It’s a present from me.”

Weiss could feel her heart slowly melting, with the way Ruby was looking at her so earnest and full of happiness. Her gaze wandered over Ruby’s face, until it landed on the nasty bruise on the side of her forehead.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Weiss asked in an attempt to shift the attention off of herself.

“Huh? Oh, this?” said Ruby, pointing to the bruise. When Weiss nodded, she just laughed. “This is nothing. Don’t worry about it. You should see some of the injuries Yang and I got when we picked fights with each other back before we’d unlocked our Aura.”

Weiss didn’t even know what to say to that. Thankfully, Ruby didn’t seem to mind. She just took Weiss by the hand again and led her around the gardens, occasionally stopping to point out flowers she thought were pretty before running off again. Weiss just let her, content to simply go along with her and enjoy the ride.

She still had a lot of things on her mind, but Ruby made it easy to forget about it all, even if just for a few moments. Weiss smiled, feeling warm inside, and hurried to make sure Ruby didn’t get too far out of her sight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeet

Yang and Ruby glared at each other from across the room, sitting atop their respective beds. Ruby narrowed her eyes. She was tossing a Lien card up and down with her left hand.

Then, without warning, she chucked it towards Yang. The card curved a bit to the side while in midair, but Yang simply reached out and clamped her fingers over it. She grinned at Ruby, who just rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue in response.

Earlier in the evening they had at least been pretending to study. Ruby still had her textbook lying open in her lap, and Yang’s notebook and pencil were sitting on the bed a few feet away, but now both of them were completely focused on this new game they’d accidentally started up together. The unspoken rules were simple enough. They took turns throwing Lien at each other, and whoever failed to catch it had to give the other person the card to keep. The game was actually pretty even so far, with Yang ahead by only a hundred.

Now it was her turn. Yang twirled the fifty Lien card in her hand, never breaking eye contact with Ruby. The seconds ticked by. She could tell Ruby was getting unnerved, although she was doing her best to hide it.

With a flick of her hand, Yang sent the card whizzing through the air, where it did a beautiful upward curve before shooting back down at an angle. Ruby had to lunge to try and grab it, but she couldn’t get a solid grip on the card. It bounced off her palm and fell to the ground. Her bed creaked and swung a little.

“You pick that up,” Ruby said with a pout.

“What? No way,” Yang protested. “I won that one. Besides, you’re closer to it.”

“Well it’s yours now, so if you want it so bad, go get it yourself.”

Weiss was sitting at her desk with her back to them, but they could almost feel the silent waves of judgement radiating off of her. She got up and picked up the Lien from the carpet, walking over to give it back to Yang.

“Thanks, Weiss,” Yang said, grinning.

Weiss rolled her eyes. “I hope you’re planning on compensating me with all this money you’re pawning off of Ruby.”

“If that’s what you want,” said Yang, her smile widening. Weiss just huffed, looking embarrassed, and went back to her desk. Yang stared after her for a while, feeling her chest warm up, before she looked back over at Ruby, who was pulling her wallet out of her pocket with great reluctance.

A few minutes later Blake returned to the dorm. “Hey, guys,” she said as she entered, closing the door behind her. Yang thought she looked a little distracted. “What day is it today?”

“Thursday,” Weiss told her.

“Thank you.” Blake gave her a small smile and walked over to her bed. Yang watched her go, feeling slightly worried. Unfortunately, Ruby also chose that moment to fling the current hundred Lien card towards her. Caught off guard, Yang didn’t react in time, and it bounced off her face and landed on the floor again.

“Um, Blake?” Yang asked awkwardly, leaning over the edge of her bed. Blake had already reached down to pick the card up. She held it up for Yang to take, but then caught sight of Ruby gesturing wildly towards her.

“It’s mine now,” said Ruby, looking far too proud of herself. Blake looked slightly confused, but didn’t move as she watched Ruby hop down and walk over to take the card from her.

“What are you two even doing?” she asked.

“Getting rich,” Yang answered.

“Shut up,” said Ruby. “I literally just won a hundred Lien off of you.”

Weiss let out a loud sigh. “They’ve been at this for almost an hour,” she said to Blake. “I’ve been reduced to the role of their trash collector.”

“Oh. Okay then.” Blake glanced up at Yang, and then over at Ruby, who was returning to her bed. Then she shrugged, picked a book off of the nearby shelf, and settled onto her own bed to read. Yang turned her attention back to Ruby.

Their little game got more intense after that. In the spirit of good sportsmanship, neither of them were making their throws _impossible_ to catch, but that didn’t stop them from doing dumb things like angling the card off the window or bouncing it from one bed to the ceiling to the other bed.

Then, after a particularly lengthy round, Ruby chucked the card directly at Yang, with as much speed and force as she could muster. It flew past her head, and Yang had to reach far out behind her to catch it. Unfortunately she had misjudged how much space she had left on her bed and ended up toppling over the edge, only just barely managing to grab onto the frame before she hit the ground.

“Hey, Blake,” she said conversationally, as if she wasn’t hanging over the side of the bunk by one arm. She made sure her feet were planted firmly on the floor before letting go of the frame, dusting her hands off a little. Blake just stared, but her eyes were unfocused. Yang frowned at that. “You alright there?”

It took a few moments for Blake to react. She shook her head, as if to clear her mind, and then let out a small sigh. “I’m okay. I just… I don’t like all this sitting around and doing nothing.”

“What do you mean?” Yang asked.

“It’s the White Fang,” said Blake, looking away. She seemed uneasy. “I’ve been checking the news lately, and they’re being unnaturally quiet. Which usually means they’re planning something big. It just makes me nervous not knowing what it is.”

“Well, what do you want to do about it, then?” said Weiss. They all looked at her. She’d turned around in her seat and was now watching the two of them intently. Ruby was listening in as well.

Blake shifted uncomfortably. “I’m—I’m not sure. The White Fang has meetings every other Thursday, about an hour from now. I know a while ago I said that trying to break in again so soon was a bad idea, but…” She trailed off.

“The knowledge is worth the risk,” Yang said, nodding in understanding. “It’s okay if you want to go. None of us will stop you.”

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed. “Just promise you’ll be safe. And if there’s any way we can help, just say the word.”

“Thanks, guys,” said Blake. She looked down at her hands for a few moments before slowly turning her gaze back over to Yang. “Actually, if it’s okay, I want Yang to come with me.”

Yang blinked. She pointed at herself. “Me?”

“Her?” said Weiss, equally incredulous.

“Yes, her,” Blake answered. Yang was glad to see that the discomfort in her expression had been replaced with a small, more hopeful smile. “We can get to the city much faster with her motorcycle. And it’ll be useful in case the worst comes to pass and we need to make a quick getaway.”

Yang just laughed and headed over to her desk, tossing the Lien card she was still holding onto its surface. “Oh, I get it,” she said, grinning at Blake. “You just want me for my ride.”

Blake just did an adorable little head tilt in response, her innocent smile neither confirming nor denying the claim. Yang felt her heart go crazy at that.

It didn’t take very long for the two of them to get ready. There wasn’t much to prepare, besides checking to see that their weapons were working fine and fully stocked. Weiss stopped them at the doorway right before they left.

“You two better be careful,” she told them, busying herself with smoothing out Blake’s outfit. “I want occasional updates! And don’t hesitate to call us if you need backup.”

“Of course,” said Blake. She seemed perfectly happy to just stand there and let Weiss fuss over her, despite how excessive it all was.

Meanwhile Ruby came up to Yang and tackled her in a hug. “Jeez, sis,” said Yang, laughing a little as she wrapped her arms around Ruby, lifting her off the ground. “You’re acting like you’re sending me off to war or something.”

“I mean, I basically am,” Ruby responded, kicking her feet in the air for a bit before hopping back down. “You remember what happened last time.”

“Yeah,” said Yang.

“We’ll do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” Blake reassured her, almost sheepishly.

They all looked at each other.

Yang’s eyes landed on Weiss, and she grinned. “Do I get a hug from you, too?”

Weiss rolled her eyes, but she held her arms out. Yang eagerly stepped forward and sank into her embrace.

“You’re so dramatic,” said Weiss.

“And you’re the one putting up with me,” Yang told her, closing her eyes and relaxing into the hug. There was just something about Weiss’s touch that made her feel so grounded and safe. Her heart fluttered inside her chest. She almost didn’t want to let go.

When they finally pulled apart, Yang caught sight of Ruby letting go of Blake’s hands. “Well, I guess we shouldn’t waste any more time,” said Blake.

Ruby nodded. “Take care, you two!”

Then Yang followed Blake out of the room.

 

* * *

 

The last person Yang had taken with her on her motorcycle had been Neptune, and he’d spent the entire ride trying to stay as far away from her as possible. Blake, on the other hand, was pressed right up against her back, her arms wrapped tightly around Yang’s stomach. The wind blowing against her front did nothing to dissipate the warmth that was building up between them. Yang enjoyed the feeling. She just hoped that Blake couldn’t feel her muscles jumping everywhere she was touching her.

Blake had shown her the location of the warehouse earlier. It didn’t take too long to make it there, and she parked a good three blocks away to avoid attracting unwanted attention.

“You want me to stay back here and wait for you?” she asked, watching as Blake hopped down from the motorcycle. “I know my recon skills aren’t exactly… the greatest.”

“That would probably be for the best,” said Blake with a small smile. “I’ll try not to be too long.”

“Alright.” Yang got off her motorcycle as well and sat down on the curb as Blake headed off, soon disappearing into the distance. Now all she had to do was sit there and wait patiently for Blake’s return.

The time ticked by slowly. Yang knew Blake could handle herself, but she still couldn’t help worrying just a tiny bit. She tried to distract herself by inspecting her surroundings.

They were currently in the rougher part of Vale, deep in the industrial district. There were few people out on the streets, and those who were walked by briskly, trying their best to ignore the surroundings. It was easy to see why the White Fang would choose a place like this to hold their regular meetings. Half of the buildings here seemed either broken down or abandoned.

Yang shifted restlessly. Sitting around and waiting was _not_ her strong suit, but she tried her best for Blake’s sake. Eventually, she ended up pulling out her scroll and booting up a video game to play.

A good while later, right as Yang was considering calling Weiss and Ruby to pass the time faster, Blake showed up again, looking slightly out of breath.

“Hey,” she said as she approached. Yang stood up abruptly and rushed over to her. The first thing she noticed was that Blake’s bow was gone.

“Hey. Everything good back there?” Yang asked her.

“Yeah,” said Blake. “Well, sort of. No one saw me, but I can’t get in. They have guards all around the warehouse, at every single entrance. Even on the roof. And they’re checking every Faunus who walks through the doors, and they've all got some sort of special identification.” She winced.

“Damn. Was it this bad last time, too?”

“No, they really went overboard with the security tonight. The whole mess I started with Roman Torchwick must have set them on edge.”

“Yikes,” said Yang.

“It’s pretty bad,” Blake agreed. “I considered knocking a few of them out and sneaking in that way, but I’m willing to bet that it’s just as heavily guarded on the inside too. It’s just not worth it.”

“Well, what’s the plan, then?” Yang asked.

Blake sighed and ran her hand through the top of her hair. One of her cat ears flicked in agitation. “I’m not sure.” Yang could tell she was struggling to keep the frustration out of her voice. “The meeting’s going to end soon anyway, so I guess trying to sneak in is a moot point by now.”

But then her expression grew thoughtful.

“What is it?” Yang asked.

“Nothing,” said Blake, except now she seemed more determined. She reached out and tugged Yang forward by the wrist. “Just got an idea. Follow my lead.”

Yang, still very confused, just let Blake guide her across the streets, crossing roads and ducking behind buildings when necessary. When they were within a block of the warehouse, Blake knelt down behind a stack of crates and motioned for Yang to do the same.

They didn’t have to hide there for very long. Soon enough, the meeting apparently ended, because Faunus began trickling past them in pairs and small groups. They’d probably taken off their uniforms and masks beforehand and left in small numbers to avoid seeming suspicious. Blake’s grip on Yang’s wrist tightened, like she was preparing for something.

“Okay,” she said to Yang, her eyes fixated on the Faunus as they walked past. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, what?”

“Just trust me.” And just like that, Blake dragged Yang out of their hiding spot, her hand slipping into Yang’s. They made it about ten feet without incident.

Then they crashed into a pair of Faunus.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” the one with dog ears growled, shoving Yang back roughly. His companion, a guy who was sporting deer antlers on his head, didn’t say anything, but he was looking at Yang with an expression of distaste.

Yang drew herself up to her full height, letting go of Blake’s hand to grab the dog Faunus by the front of his shirt. “You watch where _you’re_ going, ass,” she replied, feeling the anger rise up inside her. The guy stared back, furious and defiant.

“I’m not the one who mindlessly crashed into someone else, you filthy human—”

“Wanna try that one again, pal?”

“Whoa, guys!” Blake interrupted, putting a hand on both of their shoulders to push them apart. She kept a hold on Yang before turning back to the guy, her expression both panicked and apologetic. “I’m sorry about my friend here. Really. She’s just a little clumsy, we didn’t mean to bump into you, I swear. Humans, you know?” She laughed nervously.

Yang had no idea what was going on anymore, so she decided to keep her mouth shut. The two Faunus had their full attention on Blake, their gaze landing on her cat ears. The dog Faunus looked like he wanted to keep picking a fight with them, but his friend held him back.

“Just get out of our sight,” he ended up grumbling, shoving past them angrily. The other guy looked at the two of them, shrugged, and then followed after him.

Yang turned around and saw that they were still looking back at them, suspicious. She clenched her fist, but soon after felt Blake’s hand on her arm.

“Come on,” Blake said quietly. “We should get going.”

“Wait—but what about the—”

“Not here.”

So they headed back through the streets where they came from. Yang felt slightly dazed the entire time. Everything had happened so fast. She’d barely had time to process what exactly was happening, and by the time she did it was all over anyway.

“You wanna tell me what that was all about?” she finally said, when they had reached her motorcycle.

“I’m sorry. I panicked.” Blake took a deep breath and pulled a scroll out of her pocket. “I’m not actually that good at this sort of stuff. I needed a distraction to pull it off.”

The pieces slowly clicked into place in Yang’s head. “That’s not yours, is it?”

“Nope.” Blake grinned at her and twirled the scroll in her hand before pocketing it again. “Which means we should probably leave before that guy realizes it’s missing.”

Yang laughed. “Don’t need to tell me twice.” She turned towards her motorcycle.

“Wait,” said Blake, grabbing onto Yang’s wrist. “One last thing.” She was holding something out in her other hand. It was her bow. “Can you help me put this back on?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Yang took the bow in her hands and brought it up to the top of Blake’s head. While she tried to get it situated properly, her fingers accidentally brushed against one of Blake’s ears. It twitched. Yang jumped a little. “Shit. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Just for good measure, Blake twitched her ear again, this time on purpose. And then she had the audacity to grin when Yang jumped again.

“Asshole,” said Yang. She got the bow in its proper place and then pulled her hand back. Blake was still smiling at her, and it was doing funny things to her heart. “Get on the bike before I change my mind and ditch you here.”

Blake held onto her just as tightly as she had on the way there. Yang felt like she was going to die.

 

* * *

 

It was nearing the end of summer. They were in that weird time period during the year where it wasn’t quite fall yet, but the breeze was starting to get noticeably colder, and the leaves were showing the first signs of changing color. The students at Beacon were determined to make the most out of these final bits of good weather while it lasted. There were kids all over campus outside, relaxing on the lawn or studying together on benches around the courtyard.

Yang was on her way to the training rooms when she spotted Pyrrha and Nora sitting nearby on a grassy hill. Nora caught sight of her soon after, and waved her over.

“Yang!” Nora cried as she approached, raising one arm up in glee. “My favorite member of Team RWBY.”

Yang laughed and high-fived her. “You want me to tell the rest of my team that you said that?”

“They won’t believe you.” Nora stuck out her tongue. Yang couldn’t argue with that. “Where are you headed, anyway? It’s like, an hour until dinnertime.”

“Just going for some quick sparring,” said Yang, pointing behind her. “Ruby wants us to get together and practice some more for the qualifiers next week.”

“Ooh, you guys are so dedicated,” said Nora, impressed. She looked over at Pyrrha and grinned. “Now if only _our_ fearless leader could be as devoted to the team as Ruby is.”

Pyrrha sighed, but her expression was amused. “Nora, you pretend to fall asleep every time Jaune tries to schedule a team training session.”

“Suddenly, I can’t hear anything.” Nora turned her attention back to Yang. “Come sit with us for a few minutes! I wanna catch up.”

Yang thought it over for a few moments, a smile slowly spreading across her face. “Oh, alright,” she said, and sat down on the grass next to Pyrrha. “What are we talking about?”

Pyrrha groaned. Nora clapped her hands together excitedly. “ _Someone_ here has a big fat crush on one certain blond-haired guy.”

“Nora, please,” said Pyrrha, burying her face in her hands. Yang laughed.

“Oh, come on!” said Nora. “I promise you, that boy likes you back. Please do something about it. _Please._ Ren and I can’t handle the sexual tension for much longer.”

Pyrrha just groaned again.

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” said Yang, taking pity on her. “He’s pretty dense, but I’m sure he’ll come around soon enough.” They all knew that was a lie.

Nora must have decided that was enough teasing for Pyrrha, because she was now looking at Yang with a very curious expression on her face. “What about you?” she asked. “Got any crushes on your mind lately?”

“Oh, for sure.” Yang fell back onto the grass, resting her head in her hands and looking up at the sky. “It’s driving me absolutely nuts.”

Nora gasped, and then a few seconds later, she had appeared in Yang’s line of sight again. “You like someone? Oh my god, this is amazing! Spill the details. Have you told him? Does he like you back? Who is it? Actually, do I even know him?”

“Yeah, you do,” said Yang, grinning. She watched as Nora’s expression morphed from shock to excitement to confusion, presumably wracking her brain to think of all the boys she’d seen Yang interact with at Beacon.

“I’m drawing a blank. Who could it possibly be?” Nora asked. “Pyrrha, help me! Who do you think Yang has a crush on?”

“Don’t ask me, I don’t know either,” said Pyrrha. But then she glanced down at Yang with a knowing smile. “Whoever it is, though, I’m sure they like her back just as much as she does them.”

“Oh! I know!” said Nora, like she had just come up with the most brilliant plan ever. “I’ll just watch and wait for you to ask him out. Piece of cake.”

Yang sighed. “I don’t know. I would, but it’s kind of… unconventional.”

“Oh, you’re right. It’s usually the boy who asks the girl out, isn’t it?” Nora frowned, but then perked back up almost instantly. “Well, I say screw typical dating conventions!”

“Yeah,” said Pyrrha. She was still giving Yang that look. “I agree. Screw typical dating conventions. Besides, you and your teammates have never been one for normal, anyway.”

And then that just got Yang thinking about them. She felt her heart skip a beat, and knew there was a dopey smile on her face, but she found that she couldn’t bring herself to wipe it off.

“Someone’s lovestruck,” Nora said in a singsong voice.

“You’re right. I am.” Yang got up and pushed herself to her feet, dusting a few bits of grass off her backside and then her arms. “And I am going to leave before you can make fun of me further. My team’s waiting for me.”

She could hear Nora booing after her. The smile never left her face.

 

* * *

 

Ruby was alone in the third training room that Yang checked. She was standing in the center, expertly twirling and spinning her scythe with more grace and finesse than should have been possible with such a massive weapon.

Yang closed the door behind her and walked over to lean against the wall, content with simply watching Ruby as she skidded around and hacked at imaginary enemies. Eventually she must have noticed Yang standing there, because she turned, drove the tip of her scythe into the ground, aimed towards Yang, and fired off a shot. The bullet imbedded itself into the wall barely an inch away from her head.

“You know there’s a million better ways you could have said hi,” said Yang with a grin.

“I know,” said Ruby. She was smiling as well. “But you have to admit that was pretty cool.”

“Whatever you say, sis.” Yang walked up to the center of the room, stopping in front of Ruby to activate her gauntlets. “Blake and Weiss still in the library?”

“I think so. They should be coming soon, though.”

“Sweet.”

“In the meantime,” said Ruby, pulling her scythe out of the ground, “I feel like I need more practice blocking bullets. Wanna help me with that?”

“Sure thing.” Yang grinned and brought one fist back, hearing the gauntlet load and click into place. “Don’t think I’m going to go easy on you, though.”

Ruby scoffed. “When have you ever?”

They went at it for a couple minutes before the door opened again. Blake and Weiss entered one after the other, apparently deep in conversation. Weiss had the stolen scroll open in her hands.

“Hey, guys,” Yang called as they approached. “Find anything interesting?”

“Definitely,” said Blake. “This guy didn’t get much in the way of orders, but we did find a date and a location.” She took the scroll from Weiss and pulled up a file, showing it to Yang and Ruby.

Yang squinted at the odd assortment of numbers on the screen. The first line was obviously the date, which was over a month away. The second line looked more like coordinates. “Those numbers seem weirdly big.”

“That’s because they are,” said Weiss. “We were in the library trying to figure out where it was. The reason why it took so long is because the location is actually outside of the kingdom. Right along its eastern border.” She tapped the screen a few times and pulled up a map.

“In the mountains? What even exists up there?” Ruby asked.

“Nothing much.” Weiss shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Except rocks. Probably some Grimm, too. And… a Dust mine. Run by the Schnee Dust Company.”

“Oh,” said Ruby.

“Yeah,” Blake agreed.

“So, what are they planning on doing there?” Yang asked, confused. “Like, did they run out of the purified stuff to steal from shops, so now they’re getting raw Dust directly from the source?”

“We don’t know,” said Blake with a helpless shrug. “There’s nothing else on the scroll that tells us what their goal is.”

“But,” Weiss cut in, “at least we have a when and a where. And we have plenty of time now to figure out the why.”

“Right,” said Blake. She sighed and closed the scroll, putting it back in her pocket. “There’s no point in getting so worked up about it now. So let’s get back to what we came here for.”

Yang loaded her gauntlets again. “I’m cool with that,” she said.

So the four of them readied their weapons and spent the rest of the time practicing old team maneuvers and trying to come up with new ones. Eventually they split off into pairs, with Blake and Ruby off to the side, and Weiss taking up most of the room with her glyphs, watching Yang excitedly jump around from one to the next.

She got too ahead of herself, however. When she tried to do a flip up to the glyph hovering upside-down in the air, she failed to get a solid foothold onto it, and ended up tripping and hitting the ground. Somewhere nearby, Weiss was laughing. A few seconds later she appeared above Yang, smiling as she held her hand out. Yang grinned sheepishly and took it, letting Weiss pull her to her feet.

“You make it look so easy,” Yang grumbled, but it was good-natured.

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” said Weiss. She wasn’t letting go of Yang’s hand. “Just don’t get too ahead of yourself.”

“Well, it was fun while it lasted.” Yang stretched her shoulder, trying to rub out the ache, and was delighted when she noticed Weiss’s eyes following the motion. Then she got a great idea. “Hey. Those glyphs were solid, but you can make ones that objects can travel through too, right?”

“Huh?” Weiss had to shake herself out of her daze. “Oh, yeah, I can. Why?”

“So like,” said Yang, pretending to be casual, “would it be possible for you to make a line of glyphs, that were like, capable of speeding a person up if they went through them?” She grinned and pointed to herself. “Like me.”

Weiss glared at her. “You want me to make a cannon, don’t you?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I can try,” said Weiss, raising Myrtenaster up so that the revolving Dust chamber was at her eye level. She gave it a few spins. “I’d have to use fire Dust to help with that, though.”

Yang hopped from side to side in anticipation. She flashed Weiss a smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I can take a bit of heat.”

Weiss just rolled her eyes, trying not to smile, and stepped back. She brought one hand up and summoned five glowing red glyphs in the air, one after the other, slowly increasing in size down the line. Then she turned to Yang and did a sarcastic little curtsy. Yang almost lost it right there. “Whenever you’re ready, you reckless idiot.”

“Alright. Let’s do this.” Yang headed back to the edge of the room to get as much of a running start as she could. She crouched down closer to the ground, readying her gauntlets.

Then she charged.

Right before she hit the first glyph, she fired both shots of Ember Celica behind her, and the recoil propelled her through. With each successive glyph she hit, she could feel herself speeding up. By the time she reached the fifth one, the world had bent and blurred around her. She yelled gleefully, feeling the adrenaline course through her.

Two seconds later she crashed full-force into the opposite wall.

It took Weiss a lot longer than it should have to reach her because she was too busy laughing her ass off. Blake and Ruby rushed over first, looking alarmed, but both of them relaxed when they realized Yang was laughing too.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” Blake asked, trying to stifle her smile.

“What’s it look like we’re doing?” Yang answered. She pumped her fists. “We just successfully created the world’s first human glyph cannon!”

“Right…” said Blake.

“At least it worked,” said Ruby.

“Hell yeah it did.” Yang got to her feet, basically unphased from the impact. The wall behind her had definitely seen better days, though. “What about you guys? Come up with anything cool?”

“Not really,” said Ruby. “We were mostly just messing around with my scythe.” To give an example, she took Crescent Rose and gave it a deft whirl before dropping it onto the ground. The scythe continued to spin like a wheel, leaving scorch marks where it was sliding against the floor.

Yang raised an eyebrow. “Nice. It’s like a giant wheel of death.”

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed. She reached in and grabbed the handle of her scythe, halting it immediately. Then she did it again, but this time she hurled it at the floor, where it bounced upon impact and flew into the air.

Blake helpfully pulled out her pistol and shot at the scythe several times, sending it shooting even higher and higher. When it came back down, it hit the floor with a violent clang. Ruby caught it before it could bounce back up again.

“Very interesting,” Yang commented. Ruby beamed at the compliment.

Weiss, who had been just standing there and watching them, now pulled out her scroll to check the time. “It’s almost dinnertime,” she told them. “I think we made some good progress. Let’s call it for today and get some food?”

“Please,” Ruby cried, folding her scythe up into its compact form and stowing it away on her back. She hopped over to Weiss and grabbed her hand. “I’m _starving_.”

As they exited the training room, Yang sidled up in between Weiss and Blake and put her arms around both their shoulders. “We’re totally going to kick ass at the tournament,” she told them, smiling so wide, feeling like she was on top of the world.

Because nothing beat getting to spend time with her teammates, her three most favorite people in all of Remnant.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> proper physics don't exist in this chapter. no buts.

It was qualifiers week.

Ruby was sitting in an airship with the rest of her teammates as it took them to the heart of the Emerald Forest. Across from her, Yang had resorted to drumming her hands against the metal chairs to release some of her pent-up excitement. She was actually pretty good at carrying a beat. Blake sat next to her, watching her with a calm smile on her face.

Weiss, meanwhile, seemed tense. Ruby nudged her in the shoulder, concerned. “Weiss? You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Weiss responded without looking at her. She frowned. “Just a little nervous.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” Yang told her brightly. “We’ve been watching all the other teams do this the entire day. This’ll be a piece of cake.”

Since every year was competing in a separate division, the qualifiers were staggered throughout the week, with first-year teams going on the first day, in alphabetical order. They’d already seen JNPR complete theirs on live TV earlier, around noon. It had gone pretty well.

The rules were simple enough. They were going to be dropped into a sectioned-off area of the Emerald Forest, which would contain a small tower and exactly thirty Grimm of various sizes. The team would then get five minutes to find and kill as many as they could while protecting the tower at the same time. Ten points were awarded per Grimm eliminated, and if they somehow managed to get rid of all of them, any leftover seconds on the clock would be converted into points as well. Fifty points were given if the tower was still standing by the end. The eight teams with the highest scores from each academy would then be allowed to compete in the tournament.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” said Ruby. “I bet we could easily kill thirty Grimm in our sleep. This is nothing compared to what we’ve done in the past.”

Weiss sighed and closed her eyes. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

Outside, the airship’s engines whirred, loud enough to be distracting, but not enough to drown out the voice that sounded over the ship’s loudspeakers.

“Team RWBY is making their descent into the Emerald Forest now. I’ll bet that many of our viewers will be very interested in this particular team’s performance today.” That was Professor Port, giving his live commentary to an unseen worldwide audience. Since they’d already watched part of the broadcast earlier today, they knew that nothing that happened on the ship was being recorded. The cameras would only start rolling once they’d touched down in the forest. A few seconds later, another familiar voice answered.

“Indeed,” said Doctor Oobleck. “These four lovely ladies, despite being only in their first year of study, have already gone about making quite a name for themselves. Anyone who reads the news should know by now of their hand in taking down the nefarious criminal Roman Torchwick. And it seems a great deal many people have most of their attention focused on a particular member of the team—one dear Miss Weiss Schnee, the famed heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. Everyone’s been curious, I’m sure, to see how her training’s gone since she left her home kingdom Atlas to study here at Beacon Academy.”

“Oh,” said Ruby, almost quietly. Weiss still had her eyes closed, her hands clenched into fists.

“Now, now, while I agree wholeheartedly with what you’re saying, let’s not be quick to discount the rest of her team,” Professor Port said, effortlessly playing off of Oobleck’s words. “Personally, I have a soft spot for the two sisters, Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long, daughters of renowned Huntsmen Taiyang Xiao Long and the late Summer Rose. I’m sure there’s plenty of pressure for them to live up to the legacy their parents have left them. Team STRQ was quite the esteemed group back in the day, after all.”

“You’re absolutely correct, of course,” said Oobleck. “But I believe that each and every member of Team RWBY holds great potential. Every student does, but these girls are something special. I think I speak for everyone in the audience when I say I’m excited to see what they’ll be showing us during this tournament.”

Yang scoffed. “They didn’t even bother mentioning Blake,” she said. “What jerks. You’re just as important a part of this team as the rest of us are.”

“It’s fine,” Blake told her with a small smile. “I like it better this way.” She got up and walked across the tiny space in the center of the ship, settling down on Weiss’s other side. The seat was getting cramped, but they managed. Blake put her hand on top of Weiss’s, gently willing her to unclench her fist. She did, eventually, with a small sigh, and Blake intertwined their fingers together. “I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of pressure you’re being put through right now. Take a deep breath. We’re all here for you.”

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed, reaching out for Weiss’s other hand. “You’ve got us with you now. And we’re in this together.” Then she glanced over at Yang expectantly.

Yang just looked at her funny. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, even as she stood up. “You two already get to hold her hands.” She stopped in front of Weiss, thought for a few moments, and then sat down by her feet, resting her hand atop Weiss’s knee.

“There,” Ruby said happily. They all looked at Weiss, and watched as her shoulders slowly relaxed.

“Thank you,” she said to all of them. Ruby felt her heart swelling at how genuine Weiss sounded. And so the four of them stayed that way for the rest of the ride.

Eventually, the airship landed on the ground, the doors sliding open a few seconds later. Ruby hopped out first and found herself in a small clearing in the forest. In the center was a small golden tower, about twice her height.

She scanned the rest of her surroundings while her teammates stepped down beside her. It was hard to see in the late afternoon sunlight, but in the distance she could barely make out the steep, imposing walls of a forcefield rising up all the way into the sky, boxing them into a small section of the Emerald Forest. It was by no means small in size, though. Ruby estimated it to be about a mile wide in diameter, not that it mattered too much, since they wouldn’t be straying too far from the tower in the first place.

“Alright, ladies,” came Port’s voice from somewhere in the air. That was a little creepy. “The sector has been confirmed clear to move forward. If you would please get ready to begin.”

Ruby couldn’t see any speakers or cameras in plain view, so that meant they were probably hidden among the trees and foliage. But they all knew that the live recording had started by now, and that people would be watching their every move as it was broadcasted on TV.

“Alright,” said Ruby, motioning for her teammates to come closer. “Ten second team meeting time.”

“What’s the plan, sis?” asked Yang.

“Spread out, and go in a circle around the tower,” Ruby told them. “Make sure it and at least two of us are in your sight at all times. We don’t want to get too split apart or far away from the tower, that’ll just leave it open to attack. Besides that…” She shrugged and smiled. “Let’s show the world what we’re capable of.”

So they took up positions spaced out at the edge of the clearing, their weapons out and readied. Ruby clutched her scythe in both hands, squinting into the shadows of the trees, looking for any signs of the Grimm lurking within. Way above them, a timer appeared on the forcefield in the sky, frozen at five minutes.

Ruby turned back to check up on the rest of her team. They were all looking back at her. She nodded confidently.

Then the buzzer sounded, and the timer began ticking down.

 

* * *

 

It was almost too easy. Most of the Grimm consisted of Creeps, Beowolves, and the occasional Ursa. As per Ruby’s battle plan, they moved in a slow circle around the clearing, for the most part successfully not letting any Grimm even get near the tower. At one point Yang punched a Boarbatusk into the air, hurtling it towards Ruby’s general location. She spun and slashed her scythe across the Grimm’s exposed stomach, making quick work of it.

When the snarling eventually stopped emanating from the forest, Ruby headed towards the center of the clearing, where the others were waiting for her by the tower. She glanced up at the clock. There was still a little more than two minutes left.

“Is that it?” Ruby asked. “I took down seven Grimm. How about you guys?”

“I got six,” said Yang.

“Eight,” said Blake.

“I killed eight as well,” said Weiss.

Ruby tallied the numbers up in her head. “That’s twenty-nine. So we’re one short. Weird.”

“Well, since there’s only one left, we could go out and hunt it down?” Weiss suggested.

Before Ruby could answer, they all heard a deafening crash behind them. A couple of trees toppled over.

“Holy shit,” said Yang.

There was more crackling. Then a massive Death Stalker exploded into the clearing, sending broken shards of wood flying everywhere.

Blake was the first to react. She darted forward and knocked aside a falling tree with her sheathed Gambol Shroud, just barely stopping it from hitting the tower and demolishing it. The still-charging Death Stalker spurred the rest of them into action. Weiss stabbed the ground with her rapier and raised a wall of ice into the scorpion’s way, blocking it off from its path to trampling the tower. Knocked off course, the Death Stalker instead turned its attention to Ruby, who had been so focused on trying to make sure her teammates were okay that she didn’t notice until it was too late.

“Ruby!” came a shout. Ruby didn’t even have time to turn her head before someone knocked into her, sending her tumbling to the ground. She looked up just in time to see Yang get completely bodied by the Death Stalker’s stinger and go flying.

Everything was happening so fast. Ruby cried out for her sister, but now the scorpion was looming over her. She heard the sound of a glyph forming underneath her, and then Weiss was there, dragging her away from the scorpion’s snapping claws.

“Pull it together,” Weiss told her, squeezing her shoulder in encouragement. “We need a strategy, now.”

“Right,” said Ruby. She rushed over to Yang, who was groaning, trying to push herself up into a sitting position. On the other side of the clearing, Blake had taken it upon herself to distract the Death Stalker with both her weapon’s ribbon and pistol shots, jumping in between its claws and expertly dodging its stinger attacks. Ruby held out a hand and helped Yang back up to her feet. “First things first, we need to get rid of those claws. Yang, you good to keep it from moving?”

Yang closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were red. She clenched her fists. “Leave it to me.”

The two of them charged together. Up ahead, Blake paused just long enough to take stock of Ruby brandishing her weapon and the fact that Yang’s hair was on fire, and then she jumped aside, letting Ruby draw the scorpion’s attention with her sniper fire. It reared up and tried to snap at her with its claws, but Ruby rolled under them. Yang kept going and drove her shoulder into the Death Stalker’s face.

It screeched and tried to snap at her. She grabbed onto the pincers on its mouth, one in each hand, and shoved it back forcefully. It screeched again. Yang was yelling too, her face contorted and her arms straining from the effort to keep the giant scorpion at bay.

“Weiss! Back us up here,” Ruby shouted. Weiss nodded and lifted her rapier, launching bright blue Dust projectiles and directing them towards the joints where the scorpion’s claws were connected to its spindly arms. They could all hear the cracking as the joints weakened after each impact. The scorpion tried to jab Yang again with its stinger, but Weiss sent more projectiles towards it and knocked it away.

Ruby looked at Blake, who was clutching her weapon with grim determination. Then they took off in a sprint together, with Ruby heading towards the left claw, and Blake taking the right.

As she charged, Ruby pulled the blade of her weapon back into its war scythe form, and she spun as quickly as possible, bringing down the weapon with as much force as she could muster against the scorpion’s weakened arm. It snapped off with a loud crunching sound. The scorpion let out a shrill cry. Seconds later, Blake had managed to cleave the other claw off as well.

Hearing the claws crumbling into black mist behind her, Yang finally let go of the Death Stalker and stepped back. Almost immediately it tried to stab her again with its stinger, but Yang was prepared. She jumped up and grabbed onto the stinger, and with a colossal effort, she managed to pull it down and drive it into the ground. Thrown off balance with the removal of its claws, the scorpion ended up flipping over entirely, exposing its soft underside. The rest of its legs wiggled helplessly, trying to get back into an upright position. Weiss stepped in and froze them to the ground.

The four of them joined back together in front of the scorpion to regroup. Yang had let her semblance fizzle out by then, her breathing a little labored. Ruby checked the time. There were thirty-five seconds left. She turned to Weiss, grinning.

“Would you like to do the honors?” she asked, gesturing to the squirming Death Stalker.

Weiss looked uneasy, but when Yang stepped up and gave her a supportive pat on the shoulder, her expression became resolute, and her grip on Myrtenaster tightened. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

Blake immediately headed for the tallest tree nearby and began climbing. Ruby rushed to do the same with another tree a few yards away, Yang following close behind her. When she had reached the top, Blake fired her pistol to launch the ribbon towards Ruby, who caught it and pulled it taut in between them. Then Yang used her gauntlets to propel herself from the tree, grabbing onto the center of the ribbon and dragging it down to the ground with her as she fell. Weiss placed a glyph in front of Yang where she was pinning the ribbon to the ground, and then moved to stand on their makeshift slingshot.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Yang said from behind her.

“The clock is ticking,” was all Weiss said back.

Yang just grinned. “Your call.” Then she let go.

Weiss shot up into the air, rocketing above all of them. When she reached the peak, she held Myrtenaster above her, the revolving chamber clicking rapidly and imbuing the blade with multiple kinds of Dust. Ruby couldn’t help but stare in awe, watching her gracefully twirl in the air as she fell, until her rapier was pointed downwards, directly at the Death Stalker’s heart. Her entire body glowed with the light and colors of the Dust she was using. It was like watching a majestic, multicolored meteor fall to earth.

When Weiss landed on the Death Stalker the air around them exploded. The resulting shockwave almost knocked Ruby off balance and out of the tree. She tightened her grip on the tree trunk, using one hand to shield her eyes from the blinding light.

It took a few moments for the air to clear again. Weiss was standing there, clutching her rapier, while the remains of the Death Stalker dissipated and dissolved into mist around her. A buzzer sounded out in the clearing. In the sky, the timer had stopped with two seconds remaining.

Ruby and Blake hastened to climb their way down the trees to celebrate with Weiss. Yang, being the closest, reached her first, and basically tackled Weiss to the ground with the force of her hug. They all ended up in a big, victorious heap, laughing and cheering while Oobleck and Port talked about their performance over the speakers. That stuff was irrelevant to them now. What mattered was that they had done it, together.

 

* * *

 

Nora nearly bowled them all over the second they’d landed back at Beacon. “Guys!” she shouted, ultimately deciding to pick on Ruby and crush her in a hug. “That was amazing!”

“Aw, it was nothing,” Ruby said. She was struggling to breathe.

“It was _not_ nothing,” said Jaune excitedly, looking at all four of them in admiration. “No other team yet has managed to both defend the tower _and_ destroy all thirty Grimm within the time limit. You guys are like, on a whole other level!” He pointed to the courtyard behind them, where a holographic leaderboard was displayed near the front.

 

 **Vytal Tournament First-Year Qualifiers: Current Rankings (Top 5)** ****  
1\. [B] RWBY ——— 352 PTS  
2\. [B] JNPR ——— 330 PTS  
3\. [A] FNKI ——— 310 PTS  
4\. [S] NDGO ——— 300 PTS  
5\. [A] CPPR ——— 280 PTS  
5\. [H] ABRN ——— 280 PTS

 

“Hey, you guys came pretty close, though,” said Yang.

“Yes. With an emphasis on _close_ ,” said Pyrrha, but it was good-natured. “Come on, you all must be starving after that performance. Let’s go get dinner together.”

“Sun and Neptune recommended a ramen stall on the fairgrounds to us earlier,” Ren added. “And they also told us to save a spot for them.”

So the eight of them headed off together for the Vytal Festival fairgrounds, making small talk along the way. Eventually the conversation turned to Weiss’s explosive finishing blow on the Death Stalker. Everybody was excitedly heaping praise onto her. Ruby beamed in pride, watching as the others were more than happy to gush and wax poetic about Weiss and her abilities.

Weiss, meanwhile, seemed almost embarrassed by the attention. “Guys, it really wasn’t all that cool,” she tried to tell them. “Besides, it was a team effort. I couldn’t have done it on my own.” She looked over at Ruby, the softest smile forming on her face. Ruby felt like she was going to faint. The feeling only worsened when Weiss reached over and took her hand.

“Hey, it’s like Blake said earlier,” Ruby somehow managed to get out. Spurred on by the look that Weiss was giving her, she lifted their joined hands to her lips and pressed a kiss to Weiss’s knuckles. “We’re all here for you. And don’t you forget that.”

“I don’t think I could if I tried,” Weiss said, her voice low enough that only their team could hear. A few steps ahead, the members of Team JNPR were either being oblivious or respectfully distant. Blake reached out for Weiss’s other hand, but Yang lightly pushed her away.

“You already got to hold it earlier,” Yang said with a pout, slipping her hand into Weiss’s. “I want a turn.”

Blake just laughed.

Soon enough, they had arrived at the ramen stall and took their seats around the booth. A TV was hanging above them, still streaming the first-year qualifiers live as they began to wind down for the day. On screen, Team SSSN were locked together in a tight formation around their tower, weapons brandished at the oncoming Grimm.

The eight of them watched as a stray Boarbatusk broke through the team’s defense and shattered the tower. After a brief moment of tense, shocked silence, the four boys all decided to split up and charge deeper into the forest, each going on what was basically their own extermination campaign. It was wild to watch. Eventually Sage beaned the final Grimm in the head with a whopping twenty-four seconds left on the clock. Everyone at the ramen stall cheered as the leaderboard flashed on-screen, showing Team SSSN taking the third place spot with 324 points.

By the time they actually got around to ordering their meals several minutes later, Sun himself showed up behind them with Neptune in tow. Both of them looked out of breath, and in Neptune’s case, ready to pass out. Clearly, they’d hauled ass to meet up with them as soon as they possibly could.

“Well, if it isn’t the boys of the hour,” said Blake.

“Blake!” Sun shouted. He nearly knocked her off her stool with the force of his hug. “Did you guys see us out there?”

“Yes, we did,” Blake said, amused, patting his back a couple times. “You were okay.”

Sun pulled back immediately, putting a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Just _okay_? We were totally awesome!”

“Totally didn’t let the tower fall, either,” said Neptune, who was still hunched over, his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

“Right,” Sun agreed. “Okay, so maybe we weren’t as cool as you guys, but then again, who is?” He took a seat at the stall. “Did you guys already order for us?”

“Yep,” Blake told him. “Got you the veggie bowl. Figured that’s what you would like.”

“Aw, thanks, Blake. You know me so well,” said Sun, smiling broadly.

On Ruby’s other side, Weiss stiffened just a tiny bit. Ruby turned to face her, confused. “You okay there?” she asked.

“Huh?” said Weiss, but she seemed distracted. “Oh, yes, I’m perfectly fine. What makes you think otherwise?”

Ruby squinted at her, suspicious. Then she followed Weiss’s line of sight, which led her to Sun, who was basically talking Blake’s ear off at that point. His tail waved back and forth behind him in his happiness.

“Oh,” said Ruby, turning back to face Weiss, who was determinedly not looking at her. “Weiss, are you… jealous of Blake?”

“What?” Weiss spluttered. “Why—why would I be jealous of—how dare you insinuate such a thing!”

Her little outburst ended up catching Blake’s attention, who paused for a second, then leaned in front of Ruby to fix Weiss with a curious stare. Weiss kind of just tilted backwards away from her, which only made her bump into Yang.

“Hey guys,” Blake said nonchalantly. “What are we talking about?”

“Weiss is jealous of you,” said Ruby before Weiss could get a chance to deck her in the face.

“I am _not_ ,” said Weiss, mortified. “Not… not of _you_ , anyway.” She said that last part so quietly and with so much genuine emotion that Ruby almost took pity on her.

Blake just blinked a couple times, trying to process her words, before a small smile formed on her face. It wasn’t teasing, though, unlike the one that Yang was sporting off to the side. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” she said to Weiss, never once breaking eye contact with her. Ruby could feel herself swooning, and Blake’s words weren’t even directed at her. “I’m here now, though. What would you like to talk about?”

“I—I don’t know,” said Weiss, clearly thrown off from the direction their conversation was heading.

“Oh, I have an idea.” Blake began absently playing with the hem of Ruby’s sleeve, her smile never faltering. “Let me tell you about my day. It was pretty awesome, you know. I got to watch my amazing, talented teammate kick ass at the qualifiers. Her name’s Weiss Schnee. She’s pretty elegant. Really beautiful too, I dunno if you’ve heard of her…”

Yang was watching them with the sappiest look on her face. Judging by how warm and bubbly she felt inside, Ruby figured she probably had a similar expression of her own. Over on the other side of the booth, Jaune leaned in to whisper in Pyrrha’s ear.

“Is it just me, or have they always been like this?”

“Nah, it’s been a while,” Pyrrha replied. “Don’t stare. It’s rude.”

“Sorry.”

Their food finally arrived a short while after that. The noodles were great and everyone dug in, left starving from the day’s events. There was little room for conversation, but a few people like Nora and Sun tried anyway.

Ruby was one of the first to finish. She sighed contentedly and pushed her bowl back, rubbing at her stomach. Then she realized that Weiss was glaring at her.

“What?” asked Ruby.

After a few seconds, Weiss’s expression quickly shifted into exasperation. She picked up a napkin in one hand and took Ruby’s chin in her other. Ruby had to make a very conscious effort not to jump and freak out at the contact.

“You’re such a messy eater,” Weiss told her, rubbing her mouth clean with the napkin. When she finished, she tilted Ruby’s head to the side, inspecting her face closely in the dimming sunlight, supposedly checking for more dirty spots. Ruby could only just stare back. She felt her chest burning. It was taking all her willpower to stay put and remain motionless.

Soon enough Weiss had apparently deemed her job complete and returned to her own bowl of ramen. Ruby practically collapsed onto the table, burying her face in her arms. Her heartbeat pounded away against her chest.

“I think I’m going to puke,” said Jaune.

“Don’t say that,” Yang told him. “I’m not even done eating yet. Gross.”

Gradually they all began to finish up, and sat around making small talk with each other. It was quite an enjoyable evening.

Then Sun thought it would be funny to start a burping contest.

Neptune got roped into it by default, being Sun’s best friend and all. Nora also gave the two of them a run for their money. Eventually, Yang decided to join in, and even Pyrrha offered a burp or two of her own. The ramen stall descended into laughter and light-hearted banter, and everyone who was abstaining from the contest watched on, with reactions varying from horrified to amused to awestruck.

When the sun had finally set and the sky had begun to darken in earnest, however, Weiss was the first to stand up. “I think that’s enough for me today,” she said to the others. “I’m ready to head back.”

“Yeah,” Yang decided, getting up as well. “Me too.”

That settled it for the rest of the team. “Well, I guess this is goodbye, then,” said Ruby. “Thanks for showing us this place!”

“Catch you guys later!” said Sun.

They all exchanged farewells, and then Team RWBY headed back towards the dorms, exhausted, but also in high spirits.

 

* * *

 

“Well, gang,” said Yang, closing the door behind them. “What do we do now?”

“I’m showering first,” Ruby said immediately, darting into the bathroom before any of them could protest. She still felt grimy and sticky after their bout in the Emerald Forest and wanted to fix that as soon as possible.

It didn’t take long for her to rinse off and return to the room wrapped in a towel, feeling much more refreshed than before. After she was done, Weiss got up and went in to take her turn.

Ruby trudged over to her closet, opening it up and looking through it for a clean set of clothes to wear. A few seconds of mindless staring later, she went to Yang’s closet instead and ended up finding the dark purple hoodie she’d stolen from Blake weeks ago. She didn’t even realize that her sister had never given it back. Grinning, Ruby pulled it out and put it on. It was a little big on her, but it was fluffy and felt nice. She found a pair of Yang’s shorts and put that on as well before discarding the towel and heading over to her bed.

“Hey, isn’t that supposed to be mine?” Blake asked her as she walked past.

Ruby paused mid-step. “Maybe.”

Blake put her book down and got up from her own bed, making her way over to Ruby until she stopped right in front of her. She reached out and tugged lightly on the hoodie’s strings, smiling a little. “It looks good on you,” she said. Ruby’s heart skipped a beat.

“Thief,” Yang called from the top bunk.

“Hey, you shut up!” Ruby protested. “You shouldn’t even be allowed to complain. You’re the one who stole this in the first place.”

“Yeah, cause I liked it.” Yang flopped over and rolled down from the bed. “Now what am I gonna do?”

“Uh, steal another one?” said Ruby. They both looked at Blake, who just put her hands up behind her head, all cool and casual-like. Ruby was entranced. Yang, meanwhile, took that as an invitation to raid Blake’s closet again, and headed over, grinning.

Soon enough she pulled out a leather jacket, showing it off to Blake with a hopeful smile. Weiss chose that moment to exit the bathroom. She paused to stare at the three of them, blinking, her gaze traveling from Ruby to Blake to Yang.

“Why is everybody stealing Blake’s clothes?” she asked.

Blake shrugged. “I dunno. Would you like to join in?”

“I’m good.” Weiss turned away, looking almost shy. “I… appreciate the offer, though.”

They dispersed, respectfully facing away from Yang to let her change in peace. Except Ruby definitely caught _both_ Weiss and Blake sneaking at least a couple glances at her sister. She smiled to herself and followed Blake back to her bed.

“Oh, hey,” said Blake, looking surprised when she turned and realized that Ruby was right behind her.

“Hi,” said Ruby, beaming. “What are you reading?”

“A book.”

Ruby pouted at her. “Ha, ha. Very funny.” She watched Blake grin and settle back against her pillows, scooting to the side and patting the mattress next to her. Ruby was more than happy to join Blake on the bed and curl up close to her, letting out a sigh when Blake draped her free arm over her shoulders.

“You’re in luck,” Blake told her, picking up her book again. “I’m reading a more adventure and action-oriented story tonight.”

“Ooh,” said Ruby, craning her neck to get a better view of the book. Blake noticed and moved it closer to her. “What’s it about?”

“Well, the hero’s been thrown into an unfamiliar world, and the only help he has is from this mysterious being of seemingly infinite knowledge,” Blake explained. “Together they set out on a quest to retrieve the ancient relics of legend, hoping to restore the world to its former glory.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Ruby.

“It’s pretty good,” Blake agreed. “Want to read it with me?”

“Okay.”

Some time ago Yang had finished changing and was now lounging on the bunk above them. Judging by the cartoon explosion and shooting noises blaring from her scroll, she was busy playing video games. On the other side of the room, Weiss was lying on her side, trying not to fall asleep from sheer exhaustion and failing miserably.

Ruby soon discovered that Blake was a much faster reader than her. By the time she got to the bottom of the page, Blake would already be there, playing with the edges of the paper, waiting patiently for Ruby’s permission to turn to the next page. The story _was_ interesting, sure, but Ruby found that she was enjoying just being there in Blake’s arms more. And after a few chapters, she could feel her eyes starting to droop. She tried to fight it, at first. Blake didn’t seem to mind.

She didn’t know when exactly she finally fell asleep, but she remembered feeling content and at peace.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hit me with that wildly inconsistent update schedule amirite hahaha! sorry. i'll try and be better about it.
> 
> but really tho. thank you so much to everyone who has read and commented so far, it means a ton to me honestly. i'm honored. c:

With each passing day, Weiss could feel her resolve slowly slipping, and her sanity crumbling even further than it already had.

She was sitting alone in the library, trying to study, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Yang. She turned the page of her notebook and her mind filled with thoughts of Blake. She tried to envision her notes in her head, and instead only saw Ruby.

Overwhelmed by a sudden desire to go and see her team in person, Weiss decided to just get up from the table and let her feet take her back to the dorms. A few people in the hallways were giving her funny looks as she passed them, probably because she was smiling like an idiot, but she was too distracted to care.

When she rounded the corner of their dormitory she noticed immediately that both the doors to Team JNPR and Team RWBY’s rooms were propped open. A few seconds later, an apple sailed through the air out of RWBY’s room and into JNPR’s. There was a small crash, followed by Ren shouting, and then laughter.

Weiss tried to push down her smile and went into her own room. Ruby was sitting in the center on the carpet, her scythe half-dismantled into multiple tiny pieces all scattered around her. She had one of the silver blades in her hands and was busy polishing it. Yang and Blake, meanwhile, were sitting together on Weiss’s bed, staring intensely down at something in between them, but Weiss couldn’t tell what it was from the doorway.

“Oh, hey Weiss!” said Ruby, looking up from her deconstructed scythe to offer Weiss a wave. “Did you study well?”

“Not particularly,” Weiss admitted. “What’s… going on in here?”

“Well, Crescent Rose’s blade was getting kind of dull, so I’m fixing that,” said Ruby. She glanced over at Yang and Blake. “Those two are playing chess. Or at least trying. I don’t think Yang actually knows how to play.”

“I most definitely do not,” Yang agreed.

“Well there you have it.” Ruby turned back to look at Weiss, grinning. “Oh, and you might wanna step to the side a bit.”

“What? Why?” Weiss asked, even as she did as Ruby suggested. Her question was answered when the apple from before flew back into the room, narrowly missing her and landing right into Ruby’s outstretched hands. A loud booing came from Team JNPR’s room.

“You’re gonna have to try way harder than that!” Ruby shouted at them, chucking the apple back with as much force as she could muster.

Weiss sighed and shook her head. “You guys are such children.”

“You love us,” said Ruby, beaming. Weiss couldn’t find it in her to deny it. She settled for huffing instead, then turning to deposit her books onto her desk so the others couldn’t see her smiling.

For the next few minutes Weiss went right back to staring blankly at her notes, listening to the sound of metal clanking as Ruby worked behind her, punctuated by the occasional thump of the apple making its way in and out of their room. She clenched and unclenched her fists a few times. Something felt missing.

She finally gave up on studying and stood up, making her way to her own bed. Blake watched her approach and offered her a small smile. Weiss smiled back before stopping awkwardly at the edge of the bed, unsure of where to sit.

Yang turned to look up at her. “Sup,” she said with a casual grin, resting her weight on her arms behind her.

“Hi,” said Weiss. “Having fun?”

“Blake probably is. I have no idea what I’m doing,” Yang answered easily. “Why are you just standing there? Come join us.”

“I’m deciding which one of you I want to root for,” said Weiss.

“Me. Duh,” said Yang. She held out one arm, outstretched towards Weiss. “Blake is kicking my ass. Please help me.”

They both looked at Blake, who just shrugged. “Go for it,” she said, smiling. “Yang seems to need the moral support more than I do, anyway.”

“That’s rude,” said Yang.

“But true,” Weiss pointed out. She sat down next to Yang, who grinned and tucked her arm around her waist to pull her in closer. Weiss rested her head on Yang’s shoulder, and probably enjoyed the feeling more than she would ever be willing to admit.

Blake watched them the entire time, raising an eyebrow in amusement. “You two are cute,” she said affectionately.

“I know, right?” Yang began absently trailing her fingers up and down Weiss’s side. “Don’t worry, Blake, you’re pretty cute too. Just not as much as we are.”

“Oh, wow, I’m so jealous,” said Blake, but her relaxed smile betrayed her true feelings. “Now I feel so lonely. If only there was someone here that I could cuddle with as well.”

Just as Blake had obviously wanted to happen, Ruby perked up at that. She stopped in the middle of reassembling her scythe and hopped to her feet. “Somebody say my name?” she asked, bouncing over to the three of them.

“No,” said Weiss.

“Well, too bad.” Ruby basically pounced on Blake from behind, draping her arms around Blake’s shoulders and snuggling in close. The bed shook under the weight of her assault. A couple chess pieces fell off the board. Blake, however, seemed satisfied with the new arrangement, and leaned back to rest her head on Ruby’s shoulder.

Yang made a couple fake gagging noises, but they kind of lost all their power since she was failing spectacularly at hiding her giant grin. “You two done being gross yet?”

“Oh, don’t be jealous, sis,” said Ruby. “We can all cuddle together later if you want.”

“I’m not jealous,” Yang told her very seriously. “And I don’t want to cuddle with you. You’re ugly.”

“Then stop looking at my face, you butthead!” said Ruby, grabbing one of Blake’s fallen pawn pieces and chucking it at Yang. It smacked her in the cheek and bounced off.

Before either of them could bait each other further into an actual fight, Nora chose that moment to walk into their room, since the door was still wide open. “Hey, Ruby!” she began without looking up. “Why’d you stop throwing the apple—ah.” She stopped and openly stared at the four of them, all huddled together on Weiss’s bed. After a few seconds, she shrugged, leaned down to pick up the apple lying on the carpet, and skipped out of the room, swinging the door shut behind her.

“She’s going to eat that, isn’t she?” Yang commented.

“Probably,” said Ruby.

Nobody moved for a while. Sometime during the interruption, Ruby had somehow ended up worming her way into Blake’s lap. Blake, to her credit, didn’t seem to mind. A few moments later, she was the first to break the silence.

“Hey, Yang,” she said, pushing the long-forgotten chess game aside with her foot, “now that Weiss is back, didn’t you say you and Ruby had something you wanted to show us?”

“Oh, yeah!” said Yang. She glanced at Ruby and nodded. Ruby stood up and headed over to the shelf underneath the window, and pulled what looked like a large folded piece of paper off the top. Then she returned to the bed and held it out for Weiss to take.

“Here you go,” she said brightly, before returning to her spot on Blake’s lap. “It’s a present from us.”

“What is it?” Weiss asked, even as she began to unfold the paper.

It turned out to be a very large, _very_ detailed map of the continent of Sanus. Weiss held it out in front of her, surprised, scanning her eyes over the countless names and symbols scrawled all over the colorful map.

“Ruby and I found a ton of these in Ozpin’s office,” Yang told her, reaching past her to point at one of the two large X’s they had drawn on the map. “This is where Beacon is. And _this_ ,” she said, sliding her finger up to the mountains where the second X was, “is the location of the Dust mine that the White Fang is planning to infiltrate. I dunno, I guess we thought it would be easier to visualize and come up with a game plan if it was drawn out like this.”

Weiss didn’t answer for a few moments. She was still trying to take in all of the information presented in front of her. The distance between the school and the mine was great enough that it would take several hours to traverse by airship. Any passenger trains labeled on the map stopped long before they reached the mountains, although cargo trains could be a different story.

Then the rest of Yang’s statement registered in Weiss’s brain.

“Wait a second,” she said slowly. “What were you two doing in Ozpin’s office?”

Yang looked at her like the answer should have been obvious. “Where do you think we got the chessboard?”

“Right—okay, but _why_ were you—” Weiss was so taken aback that she had to shake herself out of her stupor. “Nevermind, I don’t want to know. Thanks for the map, though. This will be a great help.” She stood up, trying her best to ignore the way she almost immediately began missing the warmth of Yang’s embrace, and headed over to find the best place to tack the map up onto the wall.

By the time she had gotten it situated in a way that was both practical and somewhat aesthetically pleasing, Weiss heard the sound of a scroll dinging behind her. She turned around and saw that it had been Blake’s.

“Ah, sorry guys,” she said, looking up from the scroll almost sheepishly. “I gotta go.”

“What? Why?” asked Weiss, feeling her heart sinking against her will.

“I promised Sun I would meet up with him in the gardens today,” Blake explained. She tried to extract herself out from underneath Ruby. “He wants to compare history notes or something.”

“No, don’t leave us,” Yang whined dramatically. “Ruby, quick! We never got to have that one big cuddle pile you promised me earlier.”

Ruby understood immediately and moved away just far enough to grab onto one of Blake’s arms while Yang took the other. Together they pushed Blake back against the bed, pinning her down under their combined weight against her arms. After the initial surprise wore off, Blake’s expression morphed into one of amusement, and she made little effort to break free when both Yang and Ruby curled into her sides.

Then they all looked at Weiss.

“Well?” said Ruby with a grin.

It had taken a while, but Weiss had learned by now that it was much easier and more satisfying to just do things on impulse without thinking too hard about it, especially when all of her teammates were looking at her like that. So she willfully shoved down her mortification and walked back over to her bed, lying down on top of Blake and burying her face in the crook of her neck. Blake let out a small sigh of contentment. It was cute enough to make Weiss almost forget about how embarrassed she was supposed to be.

“See?” Yang said to Blake after they had all settled into the most comfortable position they could manage, given the size of the bed. “Isn’t this a thousand times better than hanging out with Sun?”

“Yes, it is,” Blake agreed with a small laugh. “But a promise is a promise. I would be a terrible friend if I broke it now.” She paused. “Even if you guys are really making me want to.”

Eventually Ruby was the first to roll off of Blake, which gave her just enough space to shift and gently deposit Weiss into Yang’s arms. Then Blake sat up, getting ready to leave, and froze. Her eyes darted between the three of them. For a split second, she looked like she wanted to do something, her expression almost longing.

But then the moment passed. “I’ll see you guys at dinner,” she said, standing up from the bed and exiting the room.

The door closed behind her and the room fell silent.

Yang draped her arm over Weiss’s stomach and pulled her in close. “Well then,” she said, and Weiss didn’t have to see her to know that Yang was smiling. “I guess we’ll have to have a cuddle party with just the three of us.”

“I’m down,” said Ruby. She scooted forward until she was pressed up against Weiss’s front, tucking her head into her chest. “You know, Weiss, for someone whose nickname is Ice Queen, you’re surprisingly warm.”

“That is entirely Yang’s fault,” said Weiss, her face burning.

“Sorry.” Somehow Yang managed to sound not sorry at all.

Weiss vaguely wondered if Ruby could hear how fast her heart was pounding. If she could, she was polite enough to not say anything. No one spoke for a while. Weiss could feel Yang’s chest rising and falling with every breath she took, and the steadiness and comfort of it slowly calmed her down.

A few minutes later, right as Weiss was beginning to doze off, Yang broke the silence.

“Hey, Ruby,” she said.

“Yeah?” said Ruby.

“You know what this is called right now?”

“What?”

“A sister sandwich.”

“Oh, yeah! We totally are. Wait, but isn’t a sandwich named after the stuff that’s in between the bread?”

“Oh, you’re right. That’s unfortunate.”

“Why? It just means we’re a Weiss sandwich, then.”

“I dunno, that doesn’t sound as good. There’s no alliteration.”

“A Weiss-wich.”

“Will you two shut up?” said Weiss with a huff.

Yang and Ruby both laughed. Weiss felt her heart skip a beat at the sound.

Soon enough the room fell quiet again. Ruby ended up being the first of them to pass out, clutching Weiss’s shirt in both her fists and snoring softly. The comforting, familiar sound was making Weiss start to slip as well, although she tried to fight it at first. She felt Yang’s grip around her midsection tighten just a bit.

“You can sleep if you want,” Yang mumbled into her hair. “I’ll wake you guys up in time for dinner.”

“Are you sure?” Weiss asked quietly.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

So with that reassurance in the back of her mind, and pressed between two of her very warm, very caring teammates, Weiss finally let herself drift off into a peaceful slumber.

 

* * *

 

As promised, Yang gently nudged the two of them awake a few hours later, with just enough time before dinner so they could go out and interrupt Blake’s study session with Sun together. Weiss got up after Ruby scrambled off the bed, feeling lighter than usual. And then because she was busy openly staring at Ruby from behind, it didn’t take long for her to notice that her hood was rumpled and askew atop the rest of her outfit. So Weiss walked up to her, putting her hands on Ruby’s shoulders and spinning her around so that they were face-to-face before beginning to pull the cloak back upright.

“Oh,” Ruby said, looking both appreciative and a little shy. “Thanks, Weiss.”

“Don’t mention it.” Then, because she was apparently incapable of stopping herself, Weiss reached up and cupped Ruby’s face in her hands. Ruby went very still, her eyes widening in shock.

“Weiss…” she said, her voice quiet and trembling slightly.

“I—I um,” said Weiss. Almost on instinct, she brushed her finger against Ruby’s cheek. Ruby actually shivered in response. At a complete loss for words, Weiss just stood there, frozen, unable to tear her gaze away from Ruby’s. She could feel herself starting to get overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of her emotions.

Yang must have noticed how badly both of them were freaking out, because a few moments later she had come up behind Weiss and put a hand on her shoulder, lightly pulling her back in an effort to break the stifling tension.

“Come on, you two,” she said with a soft, knowing smile. “We don’t want to keep Blake waiting for too long.”

It took Weiss a while to get her bearings back before she followed Yang out the door. The entire walk down the hallway she and Ruby had trouble looking each other in the eye and stayed several feet apart, because they were both mature like that. Yang was the one who dragged them back together, trying to take their minds off the situation by cracking bad jokes and telling ridiculous stories. By the time they made it outside to the gardens, it had worked, for the most part. Ruby had gone back to her usual upbeat self, and Weiss was trying not to smile as she listened to her and Yang happily bounce stupid ideas off each other.

“We should try and surprise Blake,” Yang suggested.

Weiss scoffed. “You two? Surprise _Blake_? Please. You’re both so loud she’ll hear you coming from a mile away.”

“That’s why we need a distraction,” Ruby pitched in, grinning. “I volunteer Weiss.”

“Wait, what?” said Weiss.

“I think you’re onto something, sis,” said Yang, rubbing her chin in mock seriousness. “Alright, Weiss, here’s the game plan. You go on ahead and find Blake. Ruby and I will stay back and scout the area for any openings. All you have to do is keep her occupied, okay?”

Before Weiss could protest further, Ruby gave her a little shove and a cheeky smile before running off to follow Yang, ducking behind a couple bushes. Weiss let out a loud sigh and rubbed at her face with one hand. She didn’t know why she was even considering playing along with their nonsense. But, at the very least she _did_ know that she wanted to see Blake again, so she pushed aside her thoughts and headed towards where the benches were scattered around the back rim of the gardens.

Soon enough she spotted Blake and Sun sitting together on a bench nearby. Sun was busy furiously scribbling something into his notebook, which was propped open on his lap, while Blake was talking about something next to him. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Weiss didn’t know how to feel about that.

She approached closer, and it didn’t take much longer after that for Blake to notice her.

“Weiss,” she said, and her voice was so warm, her expression lighting up as she reached out towards Weiss’s hand. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Weiss said back. She couldn’t help the smile that formed on her face as she let Blake take her hand, and then start gently playing with her fingers. On Blake’s other side, Sun perked up, noticing Weiss for the first time.

“Sup,” he said casually, giving her a small wave before turning back to his notes. “How goes the life?”

“Um, pretty good, I think. How about you?”

“I’m alright. History is kicking my ass, though. Blake, help me.”

“I am,” said Blake, amused. “And you’re doing just fine.” She turned to look up at Weiss, smiling like she was genuinely excited to see her. “Did you guys do anything fun after I left?”

“Not really,” Weiss admitted. “We kind of just took a nap.”

“I see,” said Blake, curious. “Speaking of which, where are Yang and Ruby? They didn’t make you come out to get me all by yourself, did they?”

“Oh, no, they didn’t,” said Weiss. “But, um, I honestly don’t have a clue where they are right now.”

Blake raised an eyebrow. “Huh. Weird.”

Weiss fidgeted awkwardly.

Then she saw the flash of rose petals behind them a split second before it was too late.

Ruby re-materialized right before she hit Blake, tackling into her with so much force that they actually went tumbling off the bench. Weiss could have sworn that for a moment there, Blake looked like she was watching her life flash before her eyes. They hit the ground and rolled around for a bit before Ruby ended up on top, triumphantly sitting on Blake’s stomach.

“Blake!” she said, throwing her hands up into the air. “Hi.”

“Oh my god, Ruby,” Blake said. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the ground, her hands reaching up to rest on Ruby’s hips. “I think you just took ten years off my life.”

By then, Yang had reached them, bent over from laughing so hard. Weiss listened to her for a few moments and ended up smiling herself. She had to admit that Blake’s reaction had been pretty funny.

“It was Yang’s idea,” Ruby told Blake, hopping off of her and standing back up. Yang just shrugged, still grinning, and held out her hand to help Blake back up to her feet.

“I’m sorry we scared the shit out of you,” Yang said, pulling Blake into a tight hug. “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“Hm.” Blake considered it. Weiss could see her grinning from over Yang’s shoulder. “I dunno, I think my legs are feeling a bit unstable after that. I might need some help getting to dinner.”

“Say no more.” Yang reached down with one hand and easily swept Blake up into her arms. Blake seemed to enjoy it immensely, holding onto Yang and resting her head against her shoulder.

“You guys are all insane,” said Weiss.

Yang grinned at her. “Do you want a ride to the mess hall, too?”

“What?” said Weiss, scandalized. “Of course not!” She actually kind of did, but didn’t think it would be worth the inevitable embarrassment. Not that she was about to let anyone know that.

“Yang could definitely carry all three of us without breaking a sweat, you know,” Ruby commented.

“Oh, trust me, I believe that.” Weiss crossed her arms and tried not to look like she was enjoying herself too much. “Now are we going to go get food or not?”

Just then, Blake seemed to remember that Sun was still sitting there on the bench behind them. She shifted in Yang’s arms and glanced over at him sheepishly. It made the rest of them turn to look at him as well.

“Don’t mind me,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “I don’t wanna get in between you weirdos.”

“I’m sorry about all this,” said Blake.

“Hey, don’t sweat it.” Sun leaned back against the bench with a grin, scooping up his pencil with his tail and lazily waving it around. “Don’t feel bad for wanting to be with your team, Blake. I know how happy they make you.”

“Yeah,” said Blake, her voice so quiet that Weiss almost didn’t hear it. Her bright little smile, however, was impossible to miss. “I’ll see you around, Sun.”

And with that, the four of them headed off to dinner together, Ruby and Weiss flanking Yang while she continued to carry Blake in her arms. People gave them strange looks, of course, but Weiss figured she might as well start getting used to them by now. These were her teammates, and she didn’t think she’d ever trade them and their silly antics for anything.

 

* * *

 

It was indisputable. Weiss was definitely starting to go insane.

Every day the feeling just seemed to worsen. Not necessarily in a bad way, but sometimes she wished she could at least retain some of her ability to hold herself back. She’d spent her entire childhood learning to put business before her own personal desires, and all it had taken was several months of living in a dorm with Yang, Blake, and Ruby to make her throw it all out the window.

And despite growing up rather sheltered, Weiss wasn’t _that_ clueless. She was pretty sure now of the reason behind her growing need to be closer to her teammates, even if she did want to deny it at first. The fact that they were all willing to reciprocate her sudden increase in touchiness didn’t help matters in the slightest.

Then a crumpled-up ball of paper hit her in the head.

Weiss snapped back into reality and realized that she’d missed the last five minutes of the morning’s lecture. She picked up the wad of paper and looked in the direction that it had come from, even though she already knew who had thrown it. Sure enough, Ruby was staring back at her from across the room, grinning and flashing her a thumbs up.

Earlier in the year the professor had forcibly split them up for being too disruptive during class. The vast majority of it had been because of Ruby and Yang, but all four of them were now being made to sit in separate corners of the room, just to be safe. That didn’t stop Ruby from continuing to try and communicate with them mid-lecture, though.

Weiss unfolded the paper and had to stop herself from smiling. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. Ruby had scrawled out the words “WE SHOULD START A BAND” at the top in large, blocky text, and underneath it, she’d drawn a messy stick figure of what appeared to be Weiss holding a microphone and singing. Weiss took her pencil and wrote “no” at the bottom before crumpling the paper up again, turning her attention back to the class.

She waited until the professor’s back was turned, droning on about the properties of lightning Dust, before she tossed the paper behind her, somewhere in the general direction of where Blake was sitting.

Eventually Weiss noticed Blake pass their little note over to Yang, who drew in her own additions before chucking it back to Ruby. By the time it had returned into Weiss’s possession there were a multitude of new drawings and sentences written all over the paper.

An additional trio of stick figures now joined the one of Weiss singing. Blake’s was easily distinguishable, since hers was bordering on being a legitimate sketch. Next to it, Ruby’s figure looked like she was holding an oversized pear, which Weiss assumed was supposed to be a guitar, while Yang appeared to be jumping on top of a drum set. One of them had also written “RWBY gang” next to the drawing. Since Yang had taken it upon herself to write over the letters so that they now read “RWBY YANG,” the original culprit had to have been Blake. Weiss was impressed.

She stared at the paper for a bit longer, her thumb trailing over the part where the little “no” she’d written down earlier had been crossed out and replaced with the word “YES” three separate times. It was just a silly drawing, but Weiss still couldn’t help folding it up neatly and putting it into her pocket.

Class ended a while after that. Weiss stopped at the exit to the lecture hall, watching the other students trickle by as she waited for the rest of her teammates. Blake had gone up to the front to ask the professor a quick question, so Yang and Ruby reached her first.

“Hey guys,” Ruby said, bouncing up and down excitedly. “Can we go get ice cream?”

“Right now? Why?” asked Weiss.

“Because I want some, and because I saw a vendor on the fairgrounds the other day and wanted to see if it was any good,” Ruby explained.

Blake soon finished talking with the professor and walked up to join them. “What’s going on here?” she asked, having caught the tail end of their conversation.

“Ruby wants to get ice cream at ten-thirty in the morning,” Weiss said helpfully.

“It’s a good idea,” Ruby insisted.

“Hey, I’m down,” said Yang.

In the end they decided that it was worth making the trip to the fairgrounds, since they had two hours to kill until their next class anyway. So the four of them set off through the hallways, talking and laughing together along the way.

Weiss was in the middle of listening to Ruby ramble on about possible weapon upgrades when she became acutely aware of the fact that Blake’s hand was now resting on the small of her back. She tried not to jump at the touch, but Blake noticed anyway. Judging by her panicked expression, she hadn’t been paying attention to what she was doing. She started to pull her hand away, looking apologetic, but Weiss grabbed her by the wrist.

“It’s fine,” Weiss told her, too embarrassed to look Blake in the eye. “You just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

After a few seconds, Blake seemed to relax, and she returned her hand to the same spot on Weiss’s back, but noticeably lighter this time. Weiss still had to make an effort not to shiver, though. Next to them, Ruby was still talking animatedly, and Yang was giving Weiss a curious look that was doing nothing to help calm her racing heart.

There was no way she could survive the rest of the year like this. She had to tell her teammates about how she felt, and she had to do it _soon_. If she kept it to herself any longer, she figured she'd probably explode.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love you guys. no homo tho

Life was going pretty great. In all honesty, Blake was starting to wonder if it might be going a little too great. It kind of felt like they were in a period of calm before the inevitable storm.

For one, the Vytal Festival Tournament was finally about to kick off for real in just four days. The team brackets had been released to the students the previous day, and the Amity Colosseum had arrived as well, hovering over Beacon Academy in all its massive, imposing glory. Tensions and anticipation were running high among the students. The excitement in the air was almost palpable.

Blake wasn’t too worried about the outcome of their first tournament match. They were paired up against some team from Vacuo called BRNZ, one of the lower-qualifying teams representing Shade Academy. She didn’t want to sound overly cocky, but Ruby had been putting them through the paces even harder than usual, and she was pretty sure the match was going to be a relative cakewalk.

The more pressing concern, however, was starting to creep its way into the forefront of Blake’s mind. If what little information they’d managed to gather was correct, the White Fang’s attack on the Schnee Dust Company mine outside of Vale was going to happen in a little under two weeks now. Whenever she wasn’t studying for classes or getting beaten to a pulp while training with her teammates, Blake found herself spending more and more time in the library, struggling to find whatever she could, anything that could help them either prevent or interrupt the attack.

She knew she was starting to slip back into her old habits. And she _did_ feel pretty bad about it, especially because the others were much quicker to notice this time. But the continued radio silence from the White Fang coupled with the stress of not knowing exactly what they were planning on doing at the mine was beginning to drive her up a wall.

And now she was clutching a couple of papers she’d printed out earlier, standing in their dorm in front of the giant map pinned up on the wall. Bit by bit, they’d started adding more info and notes to it as the days passed. Yang and Ruby had researched all the possible train routes and highways that could get them as close to the mine as possible from Beacon, and those paths were now highlighted on the map in bright red marker. There were several notes tacked onto the side, courtesy of Weiss, that detailed rough estimates of more sensitive, private data like the worker population size, both Faunus and human, or the percentage of Atlas security tech dedicated to that particular mine.

Blake had spent the past few hours after class meticulously recording down the departure and arrival times of the trains during the days surrounding the attack, and then listing out the best combinations they could take. Ideally they wanted to miss the fewest amount of classes possible to avoid suspicion, but since the attack was happening on a Wednesday, they didn’t have a lot of time to work with.

She was just getting ready to put her papers up underneath the map when she heard someone walk up from behind her and come to a stop by her side. It was Weiss.

After a few seconds of silence, Weiss reached out and gently curled her fingers around Blake’s wrist.

“Hello, Blake,” she said lightly.

“Hi,” Blake responded. She had to put all her effort into remaining still, because Weiss’s touch felt almost electric, sending warmth spreading up her arm and through her chest.

Oh, and _that_ was another thing that had been happening, apparently. Not just with Weiss, but Yang and Ruby too. Deep down inside, Blake figured she knew exactly what her feelings towards the three of them were, but thinking about it too hard only made her head spin. It was easier to just go with the flow of things.

“Did you find anything helpful?” Weiss asked, snapping Blake out of her thoughts.

“Um, yeah. I hope so.” She glanced down at the stack of papers still clutched in her free hand.

“That’s good,” said Weiss, her voice still oddly light. Too late Blake realized where the conversation was heading. “I noticed you’ve started skipping lunch again.”

“Oh. I—um, I just needed a little extra time to finish up Oobleck’s assignment,” Blake tried to explain.

Weiss just looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “And why exactly did you need that much more time?” she asked. Her tone wasn’t accusatory, but it was firm enough that Blake knew better than to argue. She lowered her head guiltily.

“Because I’ve been cooped up in the library obsessing over the White Fang.” Blake kept her gaze fixed on the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Weiss. Her hand slipped down into Blake’s. “I admire how hard you’re willing to work to achieve your goals, you know. But not if it comes at the cost of your well-being.”

“Yeah,” Blake said quietly. “I know you’re right. And… I know you guys already told me off once before. I can’t help it. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Well, people don’t just change overnight,” Weiss told her. She waited until Blake was looking at her before offering her a small, encouraging smile. “Not many people have the kind of drive that you do. It can be a good thing, in moderation. Just let the rest of us take care of you when you push yourself too hard, okay?”

Blake could feel her heart swelling more the longer she stared at Weiss, and she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of her. “Okay,” she said, vaguely aware of the fact that she was smiling. “Thanks, Weiss.”

Weiss just smiled back, and rubbed her thumb over the back of Blake’s hand a few times before dropping it. “Come on,” she said, heading towards the door. “Go put your notes up and let’s go get you some food.”

“Right.” Blake turned back to the map, feeling slightly dazed. She tacked the papers up onto the wall before turning to rejoin Weiss, who was standing at the doorway waiting patiently for her.

They headed down to the Vytal Festival fairgrounds together, since the mess hall had long since closed for the afternoon. The entire walk there, Blake had to keep stopping herself from reaching out to rest her hand somewhere on Weiss’s body, whether it be on her shoulder or back or arm.

“So,” said Blake, clenching her fist before Weiss could notice her fidgeting, “where are Yang and Ruby, anyway?”

“Fraternizing with the enemy,” Weiss answered easily. “I think Yang wanted to say hi to Team BRNZ before our tournament match. She refused to admit to having any ulterior motives, but I highly doubt they’re willingly having coffee together just to be friendly.”

Blake laughed a little. “That seems more like something you would do.”

Weiss tried to glare at her, but failed because she was having a hard time hiding her smile. “Well, perhaps,” she admitted, “but one of us had to come over and make sure you weren’t working yourself into the ground, right?”

And just like that, the guilt came flooding back. Blake opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Weiss stopped her.

“Don’t apologize again,” she said firmly. “You’re not inconveniencing any of us, so there’s no need to. Besides, I’d much rather spend time with you than some random team from a different school.”

“Right. Okay.” Blake took a deep breath, trying to resist the automatic urge to attempt saying sorry anyway. She glanced over at Weiss and smiled. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re actually pretty amazing?”

Weiss rolled her eyes at that, clearly amused. “Maybe once or twice,” she said with a faint smile of her own. “I wouldn’t be opposed to hearing it again, though.”

“Okay.” Blake finally gave up trying to hold her impulses back and reached up to put her arm around Weiss’s shoulders. Weiss looked momentarily surprised at the contact, but calmed down soon after. She’d been acting unusually jumpy lately. “Hey, Weiss?”

“Yes?”

“I think you’re an amazing person.”

“Thank you,” said Weiss, ducking her head a little in embarrassment. “I think you’re pretty amazing, too.”

By the time they reached the fairgrounds, Blake was grinning like an idiot, and she found that she had long since stopped caring.

They wandered around the food vendors for a bit, weighing their many options, but since Blake was doing a terrible job of avoiding staring at the sushi stall, Weiss insisted that they stop there, and then proceeded to pay for her entire order.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Blake asked, clutching the plate of sushi in her hand. She was only just now starting to realize just how hungry she was.

Weiss reached up and flicked her in the forehead. “Yes. I already ate lunch several hours ago like a normal person.”

“Right,” said Blake.

They took the food to the round picnic tables in the center of the fairgrounds, looking for an empty place to sit. It wasn’t long before Blake spotted a couple of familiar faces in the crowd of students.

“Blake! Weiss!” Jaune called excitedly, waving them over when he caught sight of them. Blake shared a glance with Weiss, who just shrugged. So they headed over to Jaune’s table together, where he was sitting there sharing a basket of fries with Ren and Neptune. Blake and Weiss settled down across from them.

“Hey, guys,” said Blake. “Been here long?”

“Nah,” said Neptune. He picked out a fry and bit off half of it. “The line for these things was super long.”

“Worth it, though,” said Jaune.

“Definitely,” Neptune agreed.

The table fell into a peaceful sort of silence as they ate their food. Blake tried not to tear through her sushi too fast. All around her, she could hear the sound of students talking and making their way among the stalls, and there was a faint breeze blowing through the air. It was all very pleasant and calming. She couldn’t believe she had almost missed this in favor of locking herself in the library and tracking the White Fang until her brain leaked out of her ears.

“Okay, wait,” said Jaune, pointing towards Blake and Weiss. “We have a very important question that we need your opinion on.”

“What is it?” said Blake.

Jaune looked expectantly to Ren, who just sighed.

“Would you rather fight fifty Boarbatusk-sized Nevermores, or one Nevermore-sized Boarbatusk?” he asked.

“The Nevermores,” Weiss answered, almost immediately. She picked up a piece of sushi with one hand, keeping the other underneath in case anything fell, and held it up to Blake’s mouth. Blake happily obliged her. “The smaller they are, the easier they are to kill. Have you seen Blake kill them? She can take out an entire flock in like, ten seconds flat.”

“That was one time,” Blake told her, “and they were like, this big.” She held her hands out barely one foot apart. “A Boarbatusk is a lot bigger than that.”

“A fully mature one is only two or three feet long. Fifty Nevermores of that size would still be significantly better than trying to fight a twenty-foot large Boarbatusk,” said Weiss.

Meanwhile, Neptune was elbowing Ren in the side. “See?” he said. “Weiss agrees with me. You two are just dumb.”

“If we’re talking about a solo fight, then a single large Boarbatusk would be easier to handle than an entire swarm of small Nevermores,” Ren argued. “Fifty is just a number on paper, but in practice, it would be incredibly easy to get overwhelmed by that many Grimm at once.”

“Plus, the Boarbatusk has the disadvantage of being forced to stay on the ground,” Jaune added. “If you pick the Nevermores, then you’d have to keep your attention on the sky as well.”

“Yes, but you also have to keep in mind that Grimm become exponentially harder to kill the bigger they get,” said Weiss. “If you thought a normal-sized Boarbatusk had tough armor, imagine trying to fight a Nevermore-sized one. At that point I seriously doubt you could even pierce through its soft underbelly.”

The boys paused to consider this. Then Jaune turned to face Blake. “Well?” he asked. “It’s two against two right now. What’s your verdict?”

Blake thought it over for a few moments. “Sorry. I’m gonna have to agree with Weiss on this one.”

“Hell yeah,” said Neptune, reaching across the table for a high-five, which Blake gave to him cheerfully. Jaune was groaning, but Ren seemed to take the defeat in stride. Weiss looked proud.

A few minutes later, just as the conversation was beginning to die down again, Blake heard footsteps coming up from behind her. Not long after she felt someone put their hands on her shoulders, and she looked up to find Yang smiling down at her.

“Found you guys,” she said, beaming.

“Hi,” said Blake, letting her head fall back to rest against Yang’s stomach. “How was the socializing?”

“Horrible,” Ruby answered for her, popping in on Blake’s other side and swiping a piece of sushi from her plate as she slid into the seat. “I thought they were all pretty boring. The girl was alright, though. I think she said her name was May?”

Yang snorted and started running a hand through Blake’s hair, leaving the other still resting on her shoulder. “You’re only saying that because she also uses a sniper rifle.”

“Well, duh,” said Ruby. “It shoots laser beams, which is cool! But it’s also nothing else. You could have attached _any_ kind of melee weapon to it, and you choose to leave it as nothing but a gun! Who does that?”

“Most normal people, I would believe,” Blake told her, grinning when Ruby pouted and latched onto her arm.

“Like I said. _Boring_ ,” said Ruby.

“Maybe a little,” Yang agreed. “It was pretty uneventful. They seemed like nice people, though.” She scratched lightly at the spot right behind Blake’s bow, and Blake actually had to stop herself from shivering. Then Yang lowered her voice a little. “I’m glad to see you out and about, Blake. We were starting to get worried about you.”

“So I’ve heard,” Blake managed to say. “You should probably thank Weiss for that.”

They all looked at Weiss, who just shrugged and fed Blake another piece of sushi. “We all would have done the same thing for each other,” she said simply.

“Still,” said Blake, reaching out to take Weiss’s hand into her own. “I appreciate it.”

Weiss averted her gaze for a second, looking almost shy, but Blake could see her trying to hide her smile. With Yang standing behind her, still playing with her hair, and Ruby continuing to cling to her arm, Blake wondered if she had ever felt so happy and content in her life before.

Eventually Ruby turned her attention to the three boys sitting across from them, who were all doing an admirable job of pretending like they hadn’t been listening in on their conversation. “Hey, Jaune,” she said brightly. “Can I have some fries?”

“We’re almost out, but sure,” said Jaune, sliding the basket across the table. “But, before you do, we have a very important question to ask you.”

“No, we don’t,” said Neptune immediately, trying to reach over Ren so he could shove Jaune in the face. “For the love of god, do not bring this argument up again—”

“Would you rather—” Jaune began, but he was forced to stop so he could swat Neptune’s hand away. “Would you rather—Ren, back me up here!”

Yang and Ruby just stared at the commotion unfolding in front of them, completely bewildered. Blake felt Weiss squeeze her hand, and she looked over to find her already staring back, clearly exasperated but also amused by the whole situation. Ren was somehow managing to remain stoic and motionless in between Jaune and Neptune’s little scuffle. After a few seconds, he sighed and finished Jaune’s question for him.

“Would you rather fight fifty Boarbatusk-sized Nevermores, or one Nevermore-sized Boarbatusk?”

 

* * *

 

The next day, instead of their usual sparring class, Professor Goodwitch took the students on a field trip to tour the Amity Colosseum for the first time. They even got to go up in the super fancy two-story airships designated specifically for tournament use only. The seats were all cushioned and the floors were neat and tiled. Naturally, this meant that Ruby spent most of the ride to the Colosseum running up and down the stairs of the airship, pressing her face up against any windows she could reach and gazing out in wonder at the landscape below.

Yang nominated Blake to be the one to wrangle Ruby back into a less hyperactive state while she went to go take care of Weiss, who was similarly captivated by the view but trying much harder to hide it. So Blake scooted her way out into the aisle, trying her best not to knock into anyone’s legs along the way, and headed over to the base of the stairs. She had made it maybe a third of the way up when Ruby came barreling down again and crashed right into her.

Instinctively, Blake wrapped her arms around Ruby’s midsection and planted her feet into the step she was standing on before either of them could tip off balance. A few seconds later, Ruby laughed into her shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Having fun there?” Blake asked, smiling when Ruby made no effort to extract herself from her arms.

“Maybe a little.” Ruby brought her legs up and hooked them around Blake’s waist, clinging tightly to her neck. Blake’s smile only widened. “I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of the view outside. We’re so high up right now. It’s amazing.”

“You know, it _is_ possible to enjoy it without running like a maniac across the entire ship,” Blake told her.

Ruby huffed. “I don’t believe you.”

“Come on.” Blake began making her way up the stairs again, taking great care not to dislodge Ruby. “You can pick one window for us to look out of. Keep in mind that we aren’t the only ones on board right now.”

Ruby eventually relented and let Blake carry her up to the considerably less-occupied second floor of the ship, where she hopped down in front of the window that was looking out towards the Amity Colosseum as they approached closer.

“It’s so big,” she said in awe, pressing her hands against the glass. “I mean, I always knew it was massive, but seeing it up close and personal like this, just… wow.”

“Yeah,” Blake agreed, coming to a stop next to Ruby. The view really was impressive, but Blake soon found herself staring more at Ruby than at the arena outside, entranced by her earnest, open expression.

Neither of them spoke for a while. The class had been split into two separate ships to go up to the Colosseum, so most of the students fit onto the first floor. Aside from a couple kids lounging around in the back, Blake and Ruby were alone on the second.

“Blake?” said Ruby, keeping her gaze fixed on the view outside.

“Yeah?” asked Blake.

“I… um,” she began hesitantly. Her fingers trailed down the pane of the window. “I just wanted to let you know that, um—that I’m really glad you’re on my team.”

Blake just blinked, having been taken by surprise. “Where’s this coming from?”

“I dunno,” said Ruby. She frowned slightly. “I just think about it a lot, I guess. That day in the Emerald Forest… if anything had gone even slightly different, we might not have ended up where we are today. I think my biggest fear when I first came to Beacon was that I was going to spend the rest of my time here stuck with people who hated me. And, well, when I became partners with Weiss, it didn’t exactly fill me with hope.” She laughed a little. “But then we all got put on a team together, and we fought a little at first, but then we got super close. And now I don’t think I would ever trade you guys for anything.”

“Ruby…” said Blake, at a loss for words.

“Ah, I’m rambling again.” Ruby shook her head and then threw herself at Blake, burying her face into her chest. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m really, really, grateful that I got the chance to meet you, Blake.”

Blake hugged Ruby back for a few moments, before reaching down and tilting Ruby’s head up so she could brush aside some of her hair. “I’m glad I met you too,” she told her softly.

And with the way her chest was burning, with Ruby looking up at her like that, if they hadn’t been in public, Blake knew she probably would have done something right then and there. Ruby seemed to understand, though. With great reluctance, Blake forced herself to step away, just as the airship began to descend upon the docking port of the arena.

“We should probably go meet back up with Weiss and Yang,” said Ruby.

“Right,” said Blake.

They headed downstairs together and found the others already lining up near the exit of the ship. Weiss and Yang were standing around with the rest of their friends, talking and laughing together. When Yang noticed them approaching, she wordlessly held out her arm. Blake smiled and let Yang pull her in, resting her arm over her shoulders. Outside, they could hear the docking port hooking onto the underside of the airship.

“Ready to be blown away?” Yang asked her with a grin.

“Honestly? I already am,” said Blake.

“Ruby and I basically grew up watching the tournament almost every year,” said Yang. “Trust me, it’s even cooler on the inside. But this’ll be my first time seeing it for myself.”

The airship door slid open, and the students began to trickle out.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, the Amity Colosseum _was_ somehow even more impressive on the inside. Professor Goodwitch tried her best to give a thorough explanation of all the different areas, from the hallways underneath the stadium to the back rooms to the spectator stands to the actual fighting arena itself. Most of the students were so fascinated and distracted by everything that she seemed resigned to the fact that only half of whatever she said would actually register.

Now they were all crowded together on the center octagonal platform in the arena. Blake squinted against the bright sunlight, scanning her eyes over the sheer number of seats lining the countless rows of the Colosseum around them. It was a glaring reminder of the fact that an absolutely massive amount of people were going to be watching them as they fought in the tournament.

Next to Blake, Ruby was excitedly trying to inspect the mechanics of the large sliding plates beneath them. The only reason why she hadn’t dashed off across the arena yet was because Yang was keeping a very tight grip on her cape.

“I believe a demonstration of the arena’s capabilities are in order,” Goodwitch was saying. “If everyone could please step away from the outer platforms.”

Yang had to drag Ruby backwards to where Weiss and Blake were standing. Blake glanced curiously at Weiss, who seemed deep in thought.

“What is it?” she asked.

Weiss blinked. “Oh, nothing, really,” she responded. “Just—this is really happening, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” said Blake.

“The tournament,” Weiss explained, her expression growing slightly worried. “In three days we’re really going to come down here and fight Team BRNZ, and not only are all of these seats going to be filled with people watching our every move, but most of the population of Remnant will be tuning in on TV as well.”

“Yeah,” Blake said quietly. “It does seem really daunting.” She put a hand on Weiss’s shoulder. “But we can get through it together.”

Weiss closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Right. Together.”

Above them, a ring of holograms appeared in the air, spinning with bright images of what appeared to be various biomes. Everyone looked up in anticipation, waiting for the reel to slow down, until half of them stopped on ice, and the other half stopped on forest.

Then, with a loud clang and whirring noise, the outer platforms drew back, and two gigantic, incredibly detailed environments rose up from the gap. Blake actually jumped a little in surprise.

“You have fifteen minutes to explore the premises,” Goodwitch told them, when the new platforms had finished locking into place. “Please do try and keep the damage to a minimum.”

Even though the arena was designed for combat between eight students at most, somehow, having nearly sixty kids running around the entire thing didn’t even feel cramped in the slightest. Blake stuck close to the rest of her team, exploring the back end of the forest together.

“Are these real trees?” Weiss asked, knocking on a trunk with her fist. “That’s pretty impressive, that they managed to figure out a way to store all these different environments underneath the arena.”

“I know! It’s so cool!” said Ruby, bouncing up and down in excitement. “I can’t believe we’re actually in the Amity Colosseum! This is amazing!” She tried to run off, but forgot that Yang was still holding onto her cape. Even then, Yang was only saved from being jerked right off her feet when Blake reached out and grabbed onto her other hand.

“Fuck!” said Yang, gritting her teeth when the cape went taut and tugged against her shoulder.

“I’m sorry!” Ruby cried.

Weiss was shaking her head, but also struggling not to laugh. “You guys are ridiculous.”

“What did I do?” Yang complained, letting go of both Ruby and Blake so she could rub at her shoulder. “Ruby nearly tore my arm out of my socket.”

“How tragic,” said Blake.

“I know, right?” Yang grinned at her. Then she turned her gaze onto Weiss, fixing her with her best pout. “It hurts, Weiss. Please help me. Can you kiss it to make the pain go away?”

“You are _so_ dramatic,” said Weiss, huffing. But then, to everyone’s surprise, she actually marched up to Yang, pushed her hand aside, and smoothed out her shirt before planting a kiss right on her shoulder. “Better?”

“Yeah,” said Yang. She looked like her brain had short-circuited, leaving her powerless to do anything except grin stupidly.

Ruby decided to join in on the fun and tackled Weiss in a hug. “What a noble hero,” she said with a huge smile on her face. “Thank you for saving the life of my sister. I am forever in your debt.”

Blake couldn’t hold it in anymore. She started laughing, which made Weiss lose it as well. They ended up in a big group hug, holding each other and cracking up as the other students shouted and engaged in mock battles around them. They were in their own little bubble, and in that moment, the only thing Blake cared about was the three people in her arms.

“My earlier point still stands, you know,” said Weiss. “You three are the most ridiculous people I have ever met.”

Blake was inclined to agree with that statement. But she also knew that she wouldn’t want it any other way.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s o o n

It was Sunday afternoon, the day before the Vytal Festival Tournament was set to begin, and Yang was busy getting bullied by her teammates.

They were holed up in one of the training rooms, trying to cram in as much final practice as they could. At this point, though, they were mostly just fooling around. They’d been training their asses off for the past few weeks, and based on the brief meeting Yang had gone to with Ruby, Team BRNZ didn’t seem like too big of a threat. It was probably a testament to how lame they all were that the idea of punching each other’s lights out for sport seemed like a fun pastime to them.

“Come on, Yang,” Ruby was saying. “We all can do it except you.”

“I don’t see why I need to know how to do multiple backflips in a row,” Yang responded defensively, crossing her arms.

“It’s a good skill to have!” said Ruby. “Like, what would you do if someone shot a bullet at your feet?”

“Uh, roll aside like a normal human being?” said Yang.

Ruby pondered this for a moment. Then she pulled out her rifle and fired a round into the floor right underneath Yang, who, as promised, dodged by rolling off to the side. “That doesn’t look as cool,” Ruby decided. “Let’s do it again. This time, try some backflips.”

“You’re an ass,” said Yang, but when Ruby fired another bullet, she reluctantly threw herself into a backflip and hopped back onto her feet, neatly avoiding the shot. “See? I can do one backflip. _One_. Are you happy now?”

“Yeah, but the rest of us can do multiple,” said Ruby, gesturing over to Blake and Weiss, who were both standing off to the side, looking amused and doing absolutely nothing to help ease Yang’s suffering.

“Okay, but that’s because Blake and Weiss are basically the human equivalent of slinkies,” Yang argued. “Backflips just don’t fit with my style. I think it’s unfair to hold me to the same standard.”

“Please?” Ruby asked, pouting. “Do it for the team solidarity?”

Yang just groaned, but let Ruby keep firing at her feet. She did the first backflip just fine, but when she dropped into a handstand trying to do the second, she could feel herself tilting off balance. Before she could fall over, however, someone had come up behind her and grabbed her by the ankles.

It was Blake.

“Hey,” she said casually, grinning down at Yang.

“Alright. Okay. Right. So this is how it’s gonna be, huh?” said Yang while still upside-down. “That’s fine. This is totally fine.”

“It’s not so hard, Yang,” Blake told her, looking like she was enjoying herself way too much. “You see, all you have to do is push hard against the ground and let the momentum carry you forward.”

“Right. Thank you. Thanks.” With Blake still holding onto her ankles, and Ruby looking like she was considering shooting at her again, Yang had no choice but to look to Weiss as her last hope. “Weiss, help me, please. Make these two assholes stop bullying me.”

“How am I bullying you?” said Blake, and Yang had to look away from her bright smile before even more blood rushed to her face. “I’m just teaching you how to do a proper backflip.”

“I know how to do a proper backflip,” said Yang. She was starting to get dizzy. “Weiss? Please?”

“What do you even want me to do?” said Weiss, even as she began to walk up to them.

“I dunno. Make Blake go away?” Yang suggested.

Weiss considered this for a moment. Then, to Yang’s absolute delight, she holstered her rapier and proceeded to throw an actual punch at Blake’s face. Blake dodged it, of course, with the help of a clone she summoned, but she nearly stumbled as she jumped back, laughing in surprise.

“Oh my god,” said Blake, looking wholly impressed as Yang finally got back up to her feet. “I can’t even be mad, that was amazing.”

“Yeah, holy shit, Weiss,” Yang agreed with a huge grin. “That was flat-out vicious. No mercy at all.”

“Don’t think too hard about it. I only tried to help because I felt bad that you were getting ganged up on.” Weiss pointed her finger at all of them. “I want nothing to do with this mess.”

“What mess?” Blake asked innocently.

Almost as an answer, Ruby fired yet another bullet towards Yang, who only narrowly blocked the shot with her gauntlets. “Jeez, Ruby, quit shooting at me for like five seconds, will you?” she shouted, punching the air in front of her and sending her own bullets flying in Ruby’s direction. Ruby backflipped her way out of every single one, all while holding onto her rifle in both hands, just to mock Yang.

The training room descended into chaos after that. The four of them were probably going to end up with more bruises than they should have had, but Yang couldn’t stop laughing the entire time. As far as she was concerned, this was the best way to spar with her teammates.

 

* * *

 

After the training session, Yang soon found herself back in the dorm, sitting on Blake’s bed with Ruby in her lap. Weiss was in the bathroom taking a shower, while Blake had left to go get some snacks for everyone.

“What if they don’t want to come?” said Ruby, her face buried into Yang’s shoulder.

“Why wouldn’t they?” said Yang. “You know them well enough by now, they’re not gonna just turn you down.”

“Maybe they will.” Ruby sniffed and tightened her grip on Yang’s shirt. “I dunno, I’ve never asked anyone besides you to tag along before. It feels weird. I’m scared.”

“It’ll all turn out fine. I promise,” Yang reassured her. “Come on, sis. If they really do turn you down, I will personally pick them up and boot them out the window for you.”

Despite herself, Ruby let out a small laugh. “You’re the worst.”

“What, for defending your honor?” said Yang, grinning. “I’m hurt.”

Behind them, the door to the bathroom opened, and Weiss stepped out wearing Blake’s dark purple hoodie. The sight was enough to immediately derail all of Yang’s thoughts. From the way Ruby had gone very still in her lap, Yang figured she was probably staring as well.

“You stole that from me,” Ruby finally managed to say, breaking the silence.

Weiss just shrugged and headed over to her bed, throwing her towel onto her desk chair as she passed by it. “Well, _you_ stole it from Yang,” she responded. “Who stole it from Blake. I simply believed it was about time I had a turn.” Then she turned her back to them, but not before Yang caught sight of her tiny, _adorable_ little bashful smile as she brought her hands up and started playing with the strings of the hoodie. For a good few moments, Yang felt like her brain had broken, and all she could do was stare and try not to smile too wide.

Soon after Blake returned to the dorm with her arms piled up with bags of chips and cookies. She kicked the door shut behind her and then froze when her eyes landed on Weiss and the hoodie she was wearing. A small smile began to spread across her face.

“You know, you three are starting to make me think that I’m never going to get that back,” she said.

“Honestly? You’re probably not,” said Yang. Above her, she felt Ruby tensing up, evidently bracing herself now that both Weiss and Blake were back in the room. Yang frowned. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

“Is everything alright?” Blake asked, concerned. She moved to the side to deposit the snacks onto her desk before heading over to sit down next to them. A few moments later, Weiss came up and did the same on Yang’s other side.

“Um—yeah, everything’s fine,” said Ruby, but she had gone back to hiding her face in Yang’s shirt. “I just—can I ask you guys something?”

“What is it?” said Weiss.

Ruby took a deep breath. The rest of them fell silent, waiting patiently for her to continue. “I… I wanted to go and say hi to my mom today. Like, as good luck for the tournament or something. I dunno. I was wondering if you guys, um, maybe wanted to come with me?”

For a while, no one spoke.

Then Blake’s expression slowly softened.

“Of course I will,” she said. “I’d love to go with you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Weiss added, her voice quiet. “It—it would be an honor.”

Ruby poked her head out to stare at Blake, then turned and glanced at Weiss. “Oh,” she said, looking surprised. “Oh, okay. Cool.”

“See? Told you there was nothing to worry about,” said Yang, grinning. She stood up from the bed, with Ruby still clinging to her, and stretched out her arms a bit. Ruby let out an annoyed huff, which only made Yang’s grin widen. She turned to address Blake and Weiss. “We’re probably gonna head out by airship soon, if that’s okay with you guys.”

“Yeah, sure.” Blake got back up and went to her desk. “But you two better help clear out some of these before we do.” She picked up a pack of cookies and tossed it to Yang, who caught it easily and tore it open, popping a cookie into Ruby’s mouth.

They decided to head out a short while after that, once they’d made it through roughly half of the pile of snacks. The flight from Beacon to Patch was almost an hour long, so they made themselves comfortable by squishing together onto one side of the airship. The seat was small enough that Ruby had to curl up in Yang’s lap in order for Blake and Weiss to fit in on either side of them. And since none of them really had much to say at first, Ruby ended up falling asleep halfway through the trip, snoring lightly into Yang’s shoulder.

Weiss was the first to break the silence, a short while after that. “She’ll be okay, right?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, she’s gonna be fine,” said Yang, shifting a little, careful not to dislodge her sister. “Ruby’s a tough cookie. I’ve always admired that about her.”

“Yeah,” said Weiss, almost absently. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached up and started running her fingers through Ruby’s hair.

Blake nudged Yang in the side. “What about you?” she asked softly.

“What about me?” said Yang, confused.

“Don’t be silly,” said Blake. She leaned over to rest her head on Yang’s shoulder. “She was your mother too, wasn’t she?”

“Oh. Well, yeah.” Yang let out a small sigh, staring past Ruby down at the floor of the airship. Outside, the engines whirred, a steady, rumbling sound that was almost calming. “I dunno, it’s kinda hard to explain. Like, I’m not really sad about it anymore. It’s been so long. At this point, our mom’s been out of our lives longer than she was in it. You just learn to live with it, I guess.”

Blake paused to think about her words. Then she tilted her head up just far enough to press a kiss to Yang’s jawline. “Well, we’re here for you, if you ever need us,” she said, while Yang’s brain fried itself. On her other side, Weiss had taken her hand with the one she wasn’t using to play with Ruby’s hair.

Yang almost didn’t want the airship ride to end.

 

* * *

 

Ruby woke up as the airship began its descent onto Patch. The pilot dropped them off at the edge of the forest, so Ruby led the rest of them through it to reach the cliff on the other side. Autumn had arrived in full force by now, and Yang could feel the first of the colorful, fallen leaves crunching underneath her every step in the forest. They bumped into a small pack of Beowolves along the way, but it didn’t take long at all to clear them out.

By the time they broke through the trees, the sun was starting to sink closer to the horizon, casting a warm, orange light across the cliffside. Yang, Blake, and Weiss hung back around the edge of the clearing while Ruby went up ahead first, approaching the gravestone by herself. The distance made it hard to hear exactly what she was saying, but Yang thought she sounded happy, or at least at peace.

She sighed and pulled Blake and Weiss closer to her, resting her arms around their shoulders. “Thanks for coming with us, by the way,” she said, kicking absently at the ground with one foot. “I know this is taking a huge chunk of time out of the rest of the day. It can’t be convenient.”

“I think we’re long past the point where you’d need to thank us for something like this,” said Weiss.

Yang looked at her curiously. “Are we?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Weiss answered, lightly bumping Yang’s shoulder with her head. “It definitely feels that way.”

Blake laughed a little. “You guys could probably ask me to dive off that cliff with you and I’d do it.”

And now that Yang was thinking about it, she realized she felt the same way. She had grown to trust her teammates with her life. The three of them fell into an easy silence, watching as Ruby continued to talk to her mom, rocking back and forth a bit on the heels of her feet and occasionally bringing her hand up to rub at the back of her neck.

After a while, Ruby turned to face the three of them, waving them over to join her. Blake and Weiss both glanced up at Yang, who just smiled and lightly shoved them forward. “After you,” she said.

So they headed up to the gravestone together and Ruby pulled both Blake and Weiss in by their wrists while turning to address her mom again. “So, yeah!” she said, bouncing a little. “Here they are. Um, this is Blake, and this is Weiss. They’re both super great fighters! And smart too. And awesome. Blake is kinda quiet sometimes, but that’s a good thing, I think. It tends to balance out how loud me and Yang can get. And Weiss is really talented at like, everything. It’s unfair, really.” Ruby shook her head a little. “Ugh, I’m totally selling them short, I swear. I guess—I guess it would’ve been better if you got to see them for yourself.”

They all heard the falter in her voice. Yang looked over at her, worried, but Weiss was already giving Ruby’s hand a supportive squeeze. Blake, meanwhile, held out her free hand towards Yang, who just gave her a funny look in return.

“Come join our hand-holding party,” she said softly, with a calm smile on her face.

Yang couldn’t help but laugh a little and take it.

“I’m really glad that I have them in my life,” Ruby managed to continue after a while. “I think you really would have liked them, too.”

They had to leave not long after that, since it was starting to get late, and no one wanted to get caught in the forest once it got dark. Ruby finished up her final words and farewells, and then they started to head out, but Yang stayed where she was, not ready to go just yet.

“You guys go on ahead,” she told the others, when Ruby looked back and realized she hadn’t moved. “I’ll catch up.”

“We can wait for you,” said Ruby.

She went with Blake and Weiss to the edge of the forest, and Yang turned back to face the gravestone, shifting her weight awkwardly. It seemed to come naturally to Ruby, but Yang had always been a bit embarrassed by the idea of talking to a slab of rock. She took a deep breath.

“Hey, mom,” she began, a bit nervous. “It’s… been a while, huh? Life’s gotten pretty hectic. Our first year at Beacon’s coming to an end, though, so that’s exciting, I guess. But Ruby’s probably told you all about that already.” She kicked away a stray pebble on the ground. “So uh, I’m sure you can tell, since I’m pretty awful at hiding it… but lately, I’ve been thinking about Weiss and Blake a lot. I’m crazy about them. Both of them. And Ruby hasn’t told me outright, but I can tell she feels the same way. It’s pretty nuts, right?”

Yang glanced behind her and saw that Blake had somehow gotten Ruby into a headlock, but Ruby was laughing about it. Weiss, who was standing off to the side, caught Yang’s eye, and offered her a small smile. Yang smiled back, feeling her heart skip a beat, and returned her gaze to the gravestone.

“Yeah, I definitely have it real bad,” she continued with a sheepish laugh. “I wish you were still here, sometimes. But then you’d probably tease me endlessly about my love life. It’d be worth it, though. You were the greatest mom I could have ever asked for.” A gentle breeze blew across the cliffside, rustling the leaves of the trees behind her. Yang closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling for a few moments. “I think we have to head out now, but I promise to visit again soon. So until then… this is good-bye, I guess.”

And on that note, she turned around and headed back towards the rest of her teammates, who all wordlessly fell into step with her as they made their way through the forest again. Nobody said much, but the mood felt a lot lighter than it had been before.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Ruby was so excited for the tournament to finally begin that she woke up and promptly fell out of her bed. It was enough to wake the rest of them, especially when she scrambled to her feet, rushed over to the TV projector they’d borrowed from the library, and slammed the power button to turn it on. The first few battles of the first round were already being broadcasted live.

Nobody was paying any sort of meaningful attention in classes anymore, not when half of the students were gone either fighting in the first-years’ bracket or preparing to fight. Team RWBY wasn’t due to show up until the afternoon, so they at least got to enjoy a quick lunch together before being whisked up to the Amity Colosseum.

And now Yang found herself pacing up and down the length of one of the back rooms in the arena, waiting impatiently for their match to begin. The room itself was pretty small and nondescript, with blank metal walls and nothing but a single chair to tide them over until it was their turn to fight. Blake was currently occupying the chair, which meant that Weiss had resorted to sitting in her lap. Overhead, Yang could hear the rumbling and cheering of the massive crowd above them, the noise punctuated occasionally by Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck’s excited commentary.

“Oh, what a thrilling way to end the match!” Oobleck was saying over the loudspeakers. “It looks like the victory goes to Team FNKI of Atlas Academy!”

Ruby came up to Yang and shoved her aside, knocking her off balance. “It’s my turn to pace now,” she said by way of explanation.

“What?” said Yang, bewildered. “Why can’t we just both pace at the same time?”

“Because it’s weird when there’s more than one person doing it,” said Ruby, as if that made total sense.

“ _You’re_ weird,” said Yang. But she stepped back anyway to give Ruby her space, and settled for stretching in the corner instead.

A short while later Professor Goodwitch opened the door to their room. “Your match against Team BRNZ is coming up next,” she informed them. “If you could follow me this way, please.”

The walk through the hallways seemed to pass by in a blur. Yang felt like the anticipation was going to kill her. Before she knew it, Goodwitch had stopped them in front of a large metal door, checking something on the large scroll in her hands before looking up to address them.

“Well, good luck, you four,” she said as the door began to slide open, revealing the newly reset arena outside. She smiled faintly. “I’m supposed to remain impartial to this whole event, but… win one for Beacon, alright?”

“You got it,” said Yang, grinning, before Blake shoved her out of the hallway and into the arena, amid the deafening noise of the crowd.

Team BRNZ was already waiting for them by the time they made it onto the center platform. Yang took up position with the rest of her teammates across from them, spread out in a line. Port and Oobleck were busy introducing both of the teams to the audience, but Yang wasn’t really paying attention. She was sizing up their opponents again now that they were all equipped with their weapons.

Besides May’s sniper rifle, the rest of their weapons looked like they were melee only. One of the boys had metal claws hooked on his hands. Another was using a pair of sharp disc-looking things attached to his wrists. The third guy had some sort of electrified stick. It was a little weird, but Yang figured she could roll with it.

“Well, that’s enough of that,” Port was saying from the commentator’s booth. “It’s time for the next match to begin, between Team RWBY of Beacon Academy, and Team BRNZ of Shade!”

As the audience starting cheering again, the ring of holograms appeared above them and began cycling through the various biomes.

“You guys remember our battle plan?” said Ruby.

“Of course,” Weiss answered, gripping her rapier tightly in her left hand.

It was simple enough, as far as plans went. Blake was going to sneak off and take out the sniper by stealth, while Yang kept the three boys occupied in the center. Ruby and Weiss were on support duty, while also acting as bait to take some of the sniper fire off of Yang. Once the girl went down, it was gang-up time on the rest of her team.

The holograms finally stopped on two biomes, and the outer platforms drew back, half of them being replaced by an ocean, and the other half by an urban environment.

“Is everyone ready?” came Oobleck’s voice. “The match starts in three… two… one… begin!”

A buzzer sounded, and the girl, May, immediately turned around and headed deep into the urban biome, evidently looking for a safe place to shoot from. Somewhere behind Yang, Blake had slipped out of sight as well. The three boys started charging, and Yang stepped forward to meet them. Weiss helpfully stabbed the ground with her rapier and raised two rows of icicles to box them in with Yang. The sight was enough to make them momentarily halt in surprise.

“Alright, boys,” said Yang, grinning. She brought her hands up and motioned for them to come closer. “Let’s tussle.”

“Like the mushroom?” Ruby called out with a cheeky smile, because she liked to rain on Yang’s parade like that. Before Yang could get distracted and turn around to yell at her, Ruby had fired off a shot from her scythe and used the recoil to propel herself to the side and out of the way.

The guy with the disc weapons detached them from the holsters on his arms and chucked them both towards Yang. She leaned backwards to dodge underneath the first one, and brought up her arm to block the second with her gauntlet. Then his other two teammates reached her.

Yang started running on autopilot after that. The three boys weren’t too bad, actually, and gave her quite a workout trying to keep up with all of them. She spent most of her effort dodging and blocking their attacks, which ultimately was fine since her job was just to keep them occupied for the time being. Ruby and Weiss helped out where they could, shooting an occasional bullet or Dust projectile to distract their opponents and keep them within the makeshift ice barrier, but Yang could hear them struggling to dodge May’s sniper shots and protect her from getting hit by them at the same time.

Suddenly Yang felt something jab into her side, hard. The guy with the baton had managed to catch her off guard and land a solid hit on her. The shock of it made Yang clench her teeth, and while she was distracted, the dude with the claws swung and punched her in the side of her face with enough force to knock her to the ground. Her cheek burned where the pointed tips of the claw had dug deep into her skin.

“Yang!” Ruby cried from somewhere around her. By the time Yang rolled back up to her feet, Ruby had vaulted over one of the walls of ice, her scythe already swinging. She hooked the blade around disc guy’s legs and tripped him off balance while shooting a bullet into baton guy’s calf at the same time. The commotion was enough for Yang to get her bearings back and sock the last guy in the stomach.

“Thanks,” she said with a sheepish smile while the three boys struggled to stand up again.

“I always got your back, sis,” Ruby responded brightly, before turning around and spinning her scythe in her hand, knocking a sniper beam aside. She hopped out of the way again, returning to her previous position outside the ice.

A few seconds later, a buzzer rang out in the arena. Yang glanced up at the scoreboard and saw that May’s Aura level had dipped below the cutoff mark. “Ooh, looks like we have our first elimination of the match!” said Port over the loudspeakers. “May Zedong of Team BRNZ has just been expertly taken down by the agile Blake Belladonna of Team RWBY!”

Yang couldn’t help but grin in pride at that. She took advantage of the surprise to launch another attack on their opponents again, who were all still trying to process what had just happened.

Just then, one of the walls of ice shattered, and Blake came diving in so fast that Yang didn’t even register that she had appeared until one of the guys had gone flying. They stood back-to-back with each other while the boys got up and started to circle them warily, trying to look for an opening.

“Hey,” Blake said conversationally. “Thought you might appreciate a little help here.”

“I was doing just fine, thanks,” Yang told her, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “You ready to finish this?”

“Of course,” said Blake.

After that, the rest of the fight turned into a one-sided massacre. Ruby and Weiss joined in the carnage not long after. Yang and Blake teamed up to knock out disc guy, while Weiss baited the baton guy into the ocean and then promptly froze his feet in the water before finishing him off. It was brutal and Yang almost laughed in glee as she watched it happen. Then Ruby dealt the finishing blow to the guy with the claws, and the fourth and final buzzer sounded in the air. The noise in the Colosseum exploded.

“What a match!” Oobleck shouted into his mic, while Yang pulled all of her teammates into a hug, laughing and cheering together. “Team RWBY has emerged victorious through a total knockout!”

 

* * *

 

Later that night Team JNPR got together with them in the lounge on their dorm floor to celebrate their triumphs in the tournament. Sun and Neptune brought their entire team along for once, so the rest of them finally got to meet Sage and Scarlet in earnest. Yang thought they seemed like pretty cool people, even if Sage was super quiet and Scarlet took a while to warm up to them.

The twelve of them started up a ruckus pretty quickly, with board games and snacks scattered everywhere around the room. There was a lot of yelling and screaming going on. Yang soon ended up crashing out on the couch off to the side, still feeling exhausted from the intense battle earlier. Weiss was sitting on the ground by her head, running a hand along the red marks across her cheek.

Yang winced when she pressed down on the wound with her fingers. Weiss frowned. “Are you sure you’ll be fine?” she asked, worried. “We can go to the infirmary and get something for you to reduce the pain if you need it.”

“Ah, it’s not that bad,” Yang tried to reassure her with a tired smile. “I’m just lucky he didn’t punch my teeth out. Ruby did that to me once when we were kids, you know. Fun times.”

Weiss tried to fix her with an exasperated look, but it just came out more affectionate instead. Yang reached up and caught Weiss’s hand with her own, unable to tear her gaze away. She enjoyed hanging out with their friends, she really did, but in that moment, Yang kind of wanted everyone else to get out of the room.

Blake came over a while after that with a plastic cup in her hand. She caught sight of Yang sprawled out on the couch and basically half-conscious at that point, but before she could say anything about the marks on her face, Weiss stopped her.

“Don’t bother,” she said. “I already tried the concerned friend thing. She’s too stubborn.”

Yang just grinned in response and flashed Blake a weary thumbs-up.

“I wish I could say I’m surprised by that,” said Blake, amused. She held out her cup towards Yang. It was filled with trail mix. “Want some?”

Yang reached into the cup and pulled out a handful, but ended up spilling most of it because she was lying down. Weiss let out a huff and caught the rest before it could tip out of her hand, and then proceeded to swat her hand away when she tried to reach for it again.

“Open up,” she said, holding a piece of chocolate up to Yang’s mouth. Yang was too surprised to protest, so she complied, and then let Weiss begin feeding her the trail mix.

Somewhere on the other side of the room, Sun was shouting something at the top of his lungs. Yang glanced up and saw him standing on top of the counter with his arms spread wide. “Here’s to more victories in the Vytal Festival Tournament! May we all continue to kick ass in the weeks to come,” he announced, while Jaune and Nora cheered him on. Then he opened the bag of chips in his hand and dumped the entire thing into his mouth.

Once the trail mix was gone, Weiss started spending her time just running her hand absently through Yang’s hair. Yang stared up into her eyes, entranced by Weiss’s peaceful, relaxed expression. Blake had sat down next to them and was now watching them with a calm smile on her face.

Eventually Yang noticed that Weiss was getting increasingly distracted by something going on with the others. At first she thought that it was just because their friends were being their usual rowdy selves, but when she followed Weiss’s line of sight, her gaze landed on Ruby and Pyrrha, who were busy throwing popcorn at each other and trying to catch it in their mouths. Both of them were laughing, and when Ruby noticed them staring at her, she smiled back even wider. Weiss seemed fixated on Ruby. Her hand stilled in Yang’s hair.

“Weiss?” Yang asked. “You okay?”

“I—” Weiss began, before trailing off. “I think I—I need to—” Her hands clenched into fists. Yang tried to sit up, confused and a little concerned by how lost Weiss looked. “I’m sorry. Can you guys wait here for a moment?”

She stood up and made her way over to Ruby and Pyrrha. Yang thought she seemed a little hesitant and unsteady on her feet. She frowned and turned to Blake. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“I dunno,” said Blake, looking about as worried as Yang felt. “I hope everything’s alright.”

The two of them watched as Weiss went up to Ruby and said something to her. After a few moments of talking, Ruby nodded and appeared to wave goodbye to Pyrrha before following Weiss back over to where Yang and Blake were.

“Hey, guys,” Weiss said slowly once they were all gathered together, her shoulders tensing up. She kept her gaze fixed on the wall, refusing to look at any of them. “Can I tell you three something? Privately?”

At first, no one answered. Even though the others were still being loud in the background, it somehow felt like the room had gotten significantly quieter. Ruby was the first to speak up.

“Of course, Weiss,” she said, reaching up to rest her hand on Weiss’s arm. “You can tell us anything.”

“Good,” Weiss said, so quietly that Yang almost didn’t hear her. “Because this—um, this is important.”

The next few minutes seemed to pass by in a haze. Something big was about to happen, and Yang could almost feel it in the air around them. She got up from the couch and followed the rest of her team out of the lounge. Jaune asked them where they were going, but Blake waved him off, saying something about wanting to get some rest.

None of them said anything until they reached the door to their room. Weiss paused with her hand hovering over the doorknob, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “You guys have to promise not to freak out,” she told them.

Before any of them could answer her, she seemed to make up her mind anyway and opened the door.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall trying to stick to a fixed update schedule is so stressful how do people do it

It was getting late into the night by now, and yet somehow the adrenaline that had propelled Ruby through the entire day only seemed to spike while just standing there in the center of their dorm. Yang and Blake were flanking either side of her, and Weiss was pacing up and down the carpet in front of them, clearly trying to work up the nerve to tell them whatever it was that she had dragged them out of the lounge to say in private.

Ruby shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The silence was starting to get uncomfortable, and she still had no idea what was going on. She glanced up at Yang and made eye contact. Yang just shrugged back.

Eventually Weiss’s footsteps slowed, and then came to a stop. Blake tried to reach out to comfort her, but Weiss flinched away from her touch. Her expression went from apprehensive to regretful when she saw Blake abruptly pull her hand back, looking confused and a little hurt.

“I’m sorry,” said Weiss, shaking her head as if trying to clear her mind. “I didn’t mean to react like that. I just—this is just harder than I thought it was going to be—ugh, I’m already making a mess of things, aren’t I?”

“You don’t have to tell us anything if you’re not comfortable,” Blake tried to reassure her.

“No,” said Weiss. She closed her eyes. Her hands clenched into fists. “I want to do this. You guys deserve to know. I just have to get it over with and say it.” Then she looked up and pointed at all of them. “No one says anything until I’m finished, understood?”

They all stared at her.

“Okay?” said Yang tentatively.

“Okay,” Weiss echoed, her gaze unfocusing for a moment. She took a deep breath and steeled herself. Then she walked up to Blake and poked her in the chest. “I—I have a crush on you.” Before any of them had time to react to her words, she had moved on to Ruby. “And… I also have a crush on _you_.”

Ruby was pretty sure her brain had exploded. All she could do was watch dumbly as Weiss held her gaze for a second longer, then moved over to stand in front of Yang, who looked just as surprised as Ruby felt.

“And yes,” Weiss managed to continue, before faltering a little. She looked at the ground, unable to get the words out for a moment. “I have a crush on you as well.” Then she stepped back, refusing to make eye contact with any of them, her shoulders tensing up. “I don’t know how it happened. But it did. And now I like all three of you. So… that’s all. That’s what I wanted to say.”

No one responded for what felt like a long while. Ruby couldn’t be too sure exactly how much time had passed, because half of her brain had shut down in pure shock, while the other half was setting itself on fire and screaming. Weiss looked like she was considering diving out the window.

Then Blake let out a small laugh. Ruby glanced over and saw that she had closed her eyes. “What a coincidence,” she said with a faint smile on her face. “I happen to feel the same way you do.”

That was apparently enough to snap Yang out of her stupor. “Whoa, whoa, wait. Pause.” She had taken a step forward and was now holding her arms out, pointing towards both Weiss and Blake. “You—both of you—like us? Like, all of us?”

“Apparently so,” said Weiss, who was staring at Blake in both awe and a little confusion. “I—I didn’t know that you—that you’d also…”

“Can you really blame me?” Blake said lightly. “You can’t just put me on a team with three amazing, wonderful people and expect me not to develop feelings for them.”

“I mean, well, holy shit,” said Yang, with that big dumb grin spreading across her face. She seemed to be having a hard time stringing together a proper sentence. “I just—wow, I mean, I like both of you too, but—man, I had kind of just accepted that it wouldn’t ever really amount to anything. But you two—you both really…?” She trailed off at the end, rubbing at the back of her neck with one hand, her smile turning almost shy.

Yang wasn’t the only one rapidly losing control of her facial expressions. For the first time since they’d entered the dorm, Weiss had a hopeful look on her face.

“Ruby?” she asked.

It took Ruby a moment to realize that the others were now looking at her expectantly. She tried not to shrink back under their gazes. Her heart started to beat faster.

“Is this the part where I say that makes four of us?” she asked with a nervous smile.

There was a pause as Ruby’s words sank in.

“Wow,” said Blake eventually. “You too?”

Ruby just nodded, unable to say anything else. Deep down, she had often wondered what it might be like if something like this were to happen, but she’d never believed it actually ever would. Her wildest dreams were coming true, unfolding into reality right before her, and she had no idea what to do next. Judging by the awkward silence coming from the others, none of them had any clue either.

She glanced at Weiss and Blake, and at Yang too. They were all looking at each other. No one was saying anything. Ruby could feel her heartbeat pounding away against her chest.

“I don’t—I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say,” Weiss admitted, her voice quiet. “I, um, definitely wasn’t expecting the conversation to turn out this way.”

“Yeah,” said Ruby.

The four of them stared at each other some more.

Then Yang started laughing. “Shit, guys,” she said. “This is crazy.” She held out her arms. “Alright, get in here, everybody.”

The tension broke. They piled up into a big group hug, just holding each other close while Yang kept laughing and everyone else groaned good-naturedly.

“Ew, this is too much love,” Blake complained, which might have been convincing if weren’t for the giant smile on her face.

“This is a mess,” said Ruby.

“Oh, for sure,” Yang agreed. “So, you know, about the usual for the four of us.”

“I’m not crazy, am I?” said Weiss. “I mean, this kind of situation doesn’t happen very often, right?”

“Nah, it doesn’t,” Yang reassured her with a grin. “You’re still crazy, though. Like, what kind of madman do you have to be to develop feelings for Ruby?”

“Hey!” Ruby protested. If she hadn’t been enjoying the group hug so much, she might have considered trying to reach up and punch Yang in the face. “You know what? I bet it’s even weirder to develop feelings for _you_ , and Weiss just went and did _both_ , so like—”

“Wait, what? Whose side are you on?” said Weiss indignantly.

“Don’t forget she likes me, too,” Blake joined in with a cheeky smile. “Which makes Weiss triple crazy.”

“Then you’re triple crazy too, Blake,” Weiss argued. “You’re not getting out of this one, you probably have it just as bad for them as I do!”

Yang started cracking up again. Her laughter was contagious.

It took a while for them to finally break apart, since nobody wanted to be the first to let go. The good mood slowly dissipated and Ruby sobered up again, but at least the awkwardness from before was gone.

“So… what now?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Weiss. She covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t actually think I’d make it this far.”

“That’s adorable,” said Yang.

Weiss glared at her. “How is that adorable?”

“Everything you do is adorable,” Yang explained with a grin and a shrug. Ruby found herself nodding in agreement. When Weiss started glaring at the both of them, Yang made a big show of pretending to wipe away her smile. “Sorry. Am I not allowed to say that out loud yet?”

“What? No, just—I’m trying to be serious right now,” said Weiss, looking away to try and hide her embarrassment.

“Right, right, my bad.” Yang’s grin came back in full force. Weiss let out a huff.

“Actually,” said Blake, while the rest of them turned to look at her, “can I ask you guys for something a little selfish?”

“What is it?” said Yang.

Blake let out a small sigh, gathering her thoughts for a moment before speaking again. “Is it okay if we wait until after this whole White Fang thing blows over before doing anything?” she asked, a little hesitantly. “I’m still pretty distracted by all of it, and… you guys deserve better than that. I want to be able to give you all my full attention, and I don’t think I can while this is still going on in the background.”

Ruby tilted her head to the side in confusion. “How is that selfish?” she asked. It had sounded like a perfectly reasonable request to her.

“Well, I dunno. It sounded that way in my head,” said Blake, looking slightly nervous. “But it’s okay if you guys don’t want to! I’m fine if you three want to go ahead and, you know, start dating or whatever without me. I’d just like to wait until after next week. If that’s not too much of a hassle.”

“It’s not a hassle,” Yang said immediately, taking a couple steps forward so she could rest her hand on Blake’s shoulder. “And I’m willing to wait for you. Don’t worry about it.” She gave Blake a reassuring smile.

“Yeah,” Ruby pitched in. She reached out and took Blake’s hand into her own. “Me too. I don’t think it’s selfish to need a little extra time. We’ll wait for you. Right, Weiss?”

“Obviously,” said Weiss. “You’re silly for thinking we would object to that. We… we’re a team, and we’re going to do this together. That’s what you guys have been telling me this whole time, right? That we’re all here for each other.”

Yang turned to face her, grinning, and held out her free arm towards her. “Aw, get over here. You can’t just say something amazing like that and keep standing off to the side by yourself.”

“I—what?” said Weiss.

“Oh, come on.” Yang rolled her eyes affectionately and pulled Weiss in closer, draping her arm around her shoulders. “You’ve been super touchy with us for the past few weeks, and _now_ you’re suddenly too scared to get close to us?”

Weiss cringed. “Was it really that noticeable?”

“To me, yeah,” Yang said simply. “It was one of the things that gave me hope that you might feel the same way about me, you know?”

“Oh.” Weiss buried her face into Yang’s shoulder. “Well, I do. So I guess you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Meanwhile, Ruby was looking up at Blake and noticed something. “Wait. Blake, are you tearing up?”

“What? No, of course not.” Blake laughed a little because she knew she’d been caught. She rubbed at her eyes. “I’m just not used to… well, you guys have been so unconditionally supportive. So, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.”

Ruby didn’t know what to say to that, so she decided to just hug Blake instead. Blake smiled and hugged her back, and Ruby buried her face into Blake’s chest, feeling like she never wanted to let go.

“Well, would you look at that, Weiss. I can’t believe you made her cry,” Yang said behind them.

“How is it my fault?” came Weiss’s protest. “You know what, nevermind. Please allow me to correct my mistake, then.” Ruby could hear the sound of Weiss shoving Yang aside, and then a few seconds later, she found herself being pried away from Blake. All she could do was stumble back, disoriented and slightly offended, and watch as Weiss took her place, attaching herself to Blake’s front. She turned her head and then stuck her tongue out at both Yang and Ruby.

“Wow,” Yang said to Ruby in awe. “We just got outplayed, sis.”

“No, _you_ got outplayed,” Ruby corrected her, crossing her arms and pretending to be annoyed. “I was having a perfectly good time hugging Blake before you dragged me down with you. Meanie.”

“Hey, at least you got a chance to hug her.” Yang grinned and turned to Weiss and Blake. “When do I get a turn, huh?”

They watched as Weiss glanced up at Blake, who just shrugged back. A moment later, the two of them broke apart, and Yang eagerly stepped forward to wrap her arms around Blake.

“Oh no,” said Blake with a weak laugh. She sniffled, pressing her face into Yang’s shoulder. “You guys are actually going to make me start crying.”

“Aw, Blake, no,” said Yang, pulling back just far enough to watch a tear slip down Blake’s cheek. She stopped it in its path with her thumb, and then gently wiped it away. “Don’t cry. What have we done?”

Ruby looked over at Weiss and made eye contact. Weiss nodded at her, so they both came up on either side of Blake and joined the embrace, starting the second group hug of the day.

“You guys are amazing,” Blake was saying, while Yang held her face, and Ruby and Weiss latched onto her sides. “I still can’t believe this is really happening. I’ve never—I’ve never felt this way before. Not this strongly.” She smiled at all of them, trying to blink back the rest of her tears. “Wow, I’m such a mess.”

“Well, you’re _our_ mess now,” Ruby told her very seriously, which made her laugh.

The four of them stayed that way for a while longer. Ruby thought she could be content with staying in the arms of her teammates forever. The only reason why she even had to entertain the idea of letting go was because the many events of the day were finally starting to catch up to her.

Just as they were beginning to disperse, going about the room to start getting ready for bed, someone knocked at the door. A few seconds later, Jaune cautiously poked his head in.

“Um, hey,” he said. “I just wanted to check and see if you guys were doing okay? You left kind of suddenly.”

Ruby glanced over at the others. Then she turned back to face Jaune. “Yeah,” she said, grinning. “I think we’re gonna be alright.”

That night, Ruby fell asleep with a giant smile on her face.

 

* * *

 

Nothing much really changed after that.

They’d been pretty close before, and they were still close now. The main difference was that Ruby could now stare as unabashedly as she wanted at Blake and Weiss whenever she wanted, and she no longer cared if they saw her big, stupid grin, because most of the time they’d be smiling back just as wide. The warm, fuzzy feeling in her chest never went away, either. Somehow, knowing they reciprocated her feelings only made the warmth more intense.

One day during dinner they were sitting at their usual table in the corner of the mess hall. Ruby, Weiss and Blake sat together on one side, while Yang sat with Team JNPR across from them, since Jaune had begged her to help him with his history notes.

Nora was cupping her hands together, forming a hoop so that Ruby could try and catapult chicken nuggets off her spoon into it. She’d managed to land a couple, but for the most part all they’d really accomplished so far was make a huge mess.

“You know, now that I’m thinking about it, this is basically what Ozpin did to us on the second day of school,” Nora said idly.

Ruby laughed. “Oh no,” she said, lining up her next shot. “We’re putting them through chicken nugget initiation.”

She flinged the nugget too hard and it went flying. Nora had to duck to the side to avoid getting beaned in the face. The nugget sailed through the air and landed several tables away, startling the group of students sitting there when it knocked over a glass of water.

“Wow, good job, Headmaster Ruby,” Nora said, grinning. “I can’t believe you just killed one of our students.”

“Shut up,” said Ruby. She was already reaching for another chicken nugget, but then Weiss flicked her in the side of her head.

“Are you actually planning on eating any of your food?” she asked, trying her best to sound annoyed. The faint, amused smile on her face probably wasn’t doing her any favors.

“I can’t,” Ruby told her solemnly, shaking her head. “There’s no time to be concerned with feeding myself when there are children who need to be initiated.”

Weiss had to cover her face so no one could see her struggling not to laugh. “ _You’re_ a child,” she pointed out.

“I’ve already gone through initiation,” Ruby countered with a grin. She grabbed a chicken nugget and pulled it back against her spoon. Weiss just sighed and picked up a strawberry from the bowl on Ruby’s tray.

“Well, you still need to eat,” she said, holding the strawberry up to Ruby’s mouth. Ruby considered this for a moment, before relenting and leaning forward to take a bite out of it. After Weiss pulled her hand away, she returned her attention to the task at hand. She aimed the spoon and then fired. The nugget launched itself directly into Nora’s hands, who immediately grabbed it and then popped it into her mouth.

“Nora!” Ruby cried, aghast. “I can’t believe you just _ate_ one of our students!”

“What? They taste pretty good,” said Nora, shrugging.

Ruby opened her mouth to protest even more, but soon felt Weiss’s hand on her chin, tilting it to the side until they were facing each other. “You can mourn your chicken nuggets later,” said Weiss, still holding onto what was left of the strawberry. “Now eat your food.”

So Ruby ate her food and felt her chest warming up as she held Weiss’s gaze.

“Alright, hold up.” Nora put both of her hands on the table and leaned forward, squinting suspiciously at Ruby and Weiss. “There’s something fishy going on here and I demand to know what it is.”

They both glanced at her.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Ruby.

Nora squinted at her some more. Then she turned to Pyrrha sitting next to her. “It’s not just me, right? They’re being super weird. Right?”

Pyrrha dutifully looked Ruby and Weiss once over. The knowing smile on her face was making Ruby’s heart start beating faster. “Maybe,” she said simply.

“Is it because Weiss was feeding Ruby?” Blake pitched in from Ruby’s other side. “Because I can do that too, if it’ll make you feel better.” Without waiting for an answer, Blake reached over and took a strawberry of her own, holding it up to Ruby’s mouth. Ruby, who was probably enjoying this far too much, obliged her immediately.

“That did not make me feel better,” said Nora, who looked like she was getting more and more confused by the second. “Thank you for trying, though.” Then she craned her neck to the side. “Yang, do you have any idea why your teammates are being weird—oh no, we lost her, too!”

They all looked over at Yang. At this point, Jaune was just flat out copying down her notes into his own notebook, because Yang was resting her head in her arms against the table, staring up at Weiss with the most lovestruck expression Ruby had ever seen in her life.

“Yang?” asked Weiss, looking both embarrassed and flattered at the same time.

Yang had to shake herself a bit before she realized they were all looking at her. “Sorry,” she said with a sheepish grin. “Did I miss something?”

“No, but you’re just—you’re—” Weiss looked away, unable to finish her sentence.

Ruby looked at Weiss thoughtfully for a moment. Then she got up and began making her way around the table. The rest of them looked at her funny, but she kept going until she sat down next to Yang, copying her position and leaning against the table, putting her head in her arms. She tried to mimic Yang’s expression while staring up at Weiss as well. Given that she completely understood how Yang was feeling, it wasn’t very hard.

“Oh my god.” Weiss buried her face in her hands. “You two are the worst.”

Blake was laughing. Yang grinned and turned her hand face-up for a high-five, which Ruby happily gave to her without taking her eyes off of Weiss. Together, they continued to gaze longingly at Weiss, who seemed to be trying to melt into the ground in mortification. Then Blake tried to stand up. Weiss grabbed her by the wrist.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” she managed to get out.

Nora was looking back and forth between all of them, bewildered, struggling to put the pieces together. Ren and Pyrrha seemed amused. Jaune was still trying to cram as many notes as he could into his notebook.

“Don’t I dare what?” Blake asked innocently.

“You know. Do that.” Weiss chanced another look at Ruby and Yang and appeared to immediately regret it.

“Well, if you insist,” said Blake. She sat back down, facing Weiss and taking ahold of both her hands. “I can just do it from here, if you’d like.” Then she fixed Weiss with the same loving expression that Ruby and Yang were still giving her.

Weiss actually jumped back out of Blake’s grasp, before planting her face into the table and groaning. “I hate you all,” she said.

“Oh no,” said Yang. “I think we killed her.”

“I think she’s gonna be the one killing us,” Ruby suggested.

Blake leaned over to inspect Weiss, poking at her cheek, curious. Suddenly Weiss sat back upright again and got all up in Blake’s face. Blake jerked back, surprised, but Weiss just followed the motion until their faces were only inches apart.

“You know,” Weiss said quietly, her expression almost desperate, “you guys are making it… _really_ hard for me to wait.”

Now it was Blake’s turn to implode, staring down at Weiss blankly and trying her best not to look like her brain had just short-circuited.

It would have been so easy for either one of them to just snap right then and there. Ruby could tell that they both really wanted to. But they were still in public, and Nora was staring at them avidly now. Even Jaune had noticed what was going on, although he sort of looked like he wished he hadn’t.

“You know what?” said Nora, helpfully attempting to break the tension at the table. “Why did we even choose to be Team RWBY’s friends out of all the rest of the infinitely more normal teams at this school? They’re total weirdos.”

“You’re weird, too,” Ren pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’m the only one on our team,” said Nora. “But there’s four of them. And they’re all nuts.”

“I think they’re pretty cool,” said Jaune. He closed his notebook and picked up Yang’s notes, holding it out towards her. “Especially Yang. Thanks, by the way. I owe you one.”

“Don’t mention it.” Yang took back her notes and pushed herself back up into a proper sitting position, signaling the end of the Weiss teasing.

Somehow everyone managed to keep it together for the rest of dinner. Nora was at least tactful enough to know that it was probably time to stop poking fun at them, especially since Blake still seemed a little shaken up by Weiss’s sudden admission. The atmosphere at the table felt more subdued after that. Ruby also tried to tone down her staring, but she couldn’t help sneaking a few glances at Weiss and Blake every once in a while. They were just such amazing people.

 

* * *

 

After dinner the four of them returned to their dorm, ready to start winding down for the day. Well, except for Weiss, apparently, who instead decided to head towards her desk with the obvious intention of distracting herself by studying. Ruby tried to start thinking of ways to convince her to not do that, but Yang beat her to the punch. She came up behind Weiss, wrapping her arms around her midsection and effectively stopping her in her tracks.

“Where are you going?” Yang asked her gently.

“Where do you think?” Weiss answered, but she closed her eyes and relaxed into Yang’s embrace anyway, almost as a reflex.

“You already studied all afternoon,” Yang told her.

“There’s a lot of material to cover,” said Weiss. Her protesting sounded very half-hearted.

“It’s tournament season.” Yang leaned forward a bit and pressed even closer to Weiss, hugging her tightly. “No one cares about classes that much anymore.”

“I do.”

“Weiss.”

“I know.” Weiss let out a small sigh. “I’m just making up excuses now.” She turned around in Yang’s arms until they were face to face, and then brought her hands up to rest on Yang’s shoulders. “Sometimes I get scared by how intense my feelings towards you guys are.”

Yang laughed a little. “Trust me, I can definitely relate,” she said. Her hands shifted to rest on Weiss’s hips. Then Ruby took a tentative step forward.

“I’m sorry if we went overboard today at dinner,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, you didn’t,” Weiss said immediately, turning her head to face her. “It was fine, really. I just—I think I’m still not used to… all of this.”

“You can say that again.” Blake came up around them and stopped at Yang’s side. She smiled. “I’m still not completely sure you guys confessed to the right person.”

“Well, I know I did,” said Yang, grinning at her. “I can prove it to you, if you want.”

Blake thought about it. “Maybe a little,” she said.

So Yang leaned over towards Blake and pressed a kiss to her cheek, holding it there for what was probably a lot longer than necessary. By the time she pulled away they were both smiling widely at each other. Then Yang turned back to look down at Weiss again. “Would you like one too?” she asked.

“No, I got it,” said Ruby, hopping over to join them. She brought her hands up and tilted Weiss’s head to face her. It took standing up on the tips of her toes a little to reach Weiss’s forehead, but getting to kiss her there was totally worth it.

“Come on,” Yang said to all of them, the smile never once leaving her face. “Let’s do something fun together for the rest of the night. We can watch a movie or something.”

No one objected, so they split up and set about preparing the room. Yang volunteered to go get snacks for everyone. Ruby grabbed the base of the TV projector and moved it over to set it up on Weiss’s bed, while Weiss and Blake piled everyone’s blankets and pillows together atop Blake’s.

Yang returned a short while later with popcorn and some cheesy romance film she’d borrowed from Team JNPR. By then Ruby was crashed out on top of Blake, lying comfortably together in the massive blanket mound on her bed. Weiss was sitting next to them and trying not to watch them too fondly.

Eventually Yang had to drag Ruby off of Blake to make enough room for everyone to fit, which Ruby did not appreciate. They booted up the movie and settled in, cuddling together with Blake and Weiss in the center, and Yang and Ruby on either side of them.

The movie was nice enough, Ruby thought. None of them were really paying it too much attention, though. The best part was simply getting to eat popcorn and relax in the arms of her teammates.

About halfway through the movie Yang spoke. Up until then, they’d all been pretty quiet. “Hey, Blake?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“Catch.”

Blake paused for a second, confused. “What am I catching?”

But that was all the warning she got. A moment later, Yang rolled over on top of her, pinning her to the bed with her entire body. Even in the relative darkness of the room, there was no mistaking Yang’s bright smile as she stared down at Blake with so much adoration in her expression that Ruby could almost feel it radiating off of her.

“Jeez, Yang,” said Blake. She laughed, but made no effort to move or push Yang off of herself. “I knew you were an affectionate person, but I didn’t know you were _this_ bad.”

“I’ve been holding back,” Yang told her, burying her face into the crook of Blake’s neck and grinning. “I can’t wait until we start actually dating. I’m going to shower you two in all the love that you guys deserve.”

They ended up in a massive cuddle pile after that. All Ruby could feel around her were the blankets, her teammates, and a couple of stray pieces of popcorn. She couldn’t remember how the movie had ended. The only thing she cared enough to pay attention to was the wonderful feeling of being close with the three most important people in her life.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is this? vague hints of plot shenanigans? the blasphemy

Weiss soon came to notice that her heart liked to do this weird thing where every time she thought about either Yang, Blake, or Ruby, it would skip a beat. Since she’d been thinking about them basically nonstop in recent times, it was starting to feel like she was in a constant state of wild, uncontrollable free-falling. Not that she minded. The only problem was that it made her attempts to seem aloof much harder, although she knew she’d already been failing at that for quite some time now.

She thought back to what she was like at the beginning of the year and wondered where it all went wrong. Or rather, she realized, where it all went right.

“God, what have you guys done to me?” Weiss said when she heard the door open behind her.

“I dunno,” came Ruby’s response. “Won you over with our kindness and super cute looks?”

Weiss couldn’t help but laugh at that. She turned around, coming face to face with Ruby and her bright, cheerful smile. “And your stunning amount of modesty, apparently,” she said.

“Hm.” Ruby just beamed at her. “You know it’s the truth, though.”

“Do I?” said Weiss.

Ruby hopped up to her and leaned up to kiss her on the cheek. Then she pulled back, still grinning, and Weiss felt her heart melting. “What have you been up to?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” Weiss answered, pointing with her thumb to the map of Sanus and all their little notes attached to it, mounted on the wall behind her. “Just staring at that and thinking about stuff. Why?”

“I need to pick up something from the mailroom,” Ruby told her. “Wanna come with me?”

“Sure,” said Weiss, a little suspiciously. Ruby seemed way too excited for it to just be a mundane letter. “What is it exactly we’re picking up?”

“That, my dear Weiss, is a surprise.” Ruby’s smile turned cheeky.

“Right. Should I be worried?” Weiss asked, even as she began to follow Ruby out of the dorm room.

“I mean, I hope not?” said Ruby, scrunching up her face. It was adorable. Weiss found herself staring. “It’s just something small I ordered for all of us like, a week ago. I’m super stoked that it’s finally here.”

They headed outside together and made their way across the courtyard to the building that housed the mailroom. It was starting to get chilly in earnest now, and the ground was littered with crunchy, fallen leaves that left the tree branches almost bare. Weiss kept a hand firmly placed around Ruby’s waist, partly because she wanted to, but also partly because if she didn’t Ruby would definitely run off the path and start jumping around in the leaf piles.

“I love this kind of weather,” Ruby said with a happy sigh, stretching out her arms and narrowly missing hitting Weiss’s face by inches. “Like, it’s cold, but not enough that you have to start really bundling up. And everything is so fun and colorful outside.”

“It is pretty nice,” Weiss admitted.

Ruby turned to face her, smiling. “What about you?” she asked. “What’s your favorite season?”

“Huh.” Weiss had to think about that one for a while. “I’m not sure. Spring, I guess, if I had to choose one.”

“Really? It’s not winter?” Ruby asked, her voice teasing, and Weiss almost wanted to smack her.

“Don’t be an ass,” she said, but she felt far more amused than she did aggravated.

“Sorry,” said Ruby. She laughed and then managed to slip out of Weiss’s grasp so that she could link their hands together. “Why spring, then?”

“I dunno,” said Weiss, absently brushing her thumb over the back of Ruby’s hand as they continued walking. “I think it’s because spring is the season where everything comes back to life again. Even when the plants die or the animals go into hibernation, it feels nice knowing that the world will always bloom again when the time comes, no matter what.”

“That’s really cool.” Ruby’s expression turned soft. Weiss looked at her and, not for the first time, was struck with an intense desire to kiss her. Judging by the way Ruby glanced at her mouth, she was thinking the same thing. Then Ruby grinned. “Nice.”

“Shut up,” said Weiss, shoving her away, but she was laughing. Ruby laughed, too.

They arrived at the mailroom. Ruby held the door open for Weiss and they went inside. The first years’ section was located on the left side, at the end of the hall. Inside that room, rows and rows of locked metal boxes of various sizes lines the walls. Ruby pulled out her scroll and held it over the identification panel at the entrance to the room. After a few seconds, the panel beeped, and one of the smaller lockers at the end of the room popped open.

Weiss barely even had time to react before Ruby had zipped across the room, grabbed the package, shut the locker door, and reappeared by her side in a flash.

“Ta-da,” Ruby said proudly, grinning as she showed Weiss the long, rather narrow box in her hands. Weiss stared down at it and raised an eyebrow.

“Do I get to know what’s inside it now?” she asked.

“Okay, fine.” Ruby ran her hands along the bottom of the box, looking for a spot to tear it open from. The fact that she didn’t take her eyes off Weiss while grinning like an idiot the entire time probably made it a lot harder. Eventually, though, she managed to get the box open, and she turned it around to show Weiss its contents.

Weiss blinked. “Are those—?”

“Radio earpieces!” Ruby finished for her cheerfully. “I got four, one for each of us. If for whatever reason we get lost or separated while at the mine, we’ll still be able to communicate with each other and stuff. I just thought it would be helpful for the mission.”

“That’s… incredibly considerate of you,” said Weiss, surprised. She brought her hand up closer to the box. When Ruby didn’t move or push her away, she began running her fingers along one of the earpieces. “How much did these cost you? It couldn’t have been cheap, right? I can pay you back for mine if necessary.”

“No, it’s okay.” Ruby waved her off, smiling brightly. “It wasn’t that much. Plus, think about how awesome we’ll look. We’ll be like secret spy agents. How cool is that?”

Weiss didn’t think she had ever wanted to roll her eyes and tackle someone in a hug at the same time as badly as she did in that moment. “Ah, there it is,” she settled for saying instead, a faint smile spreading across her face. “I was waiting for you to tell me the _real_ reason why you bought these for us.”

“What, am I not allowed to have more than a single motive?” Ruby said. She grinned and closed the box, stuffing it under one arm so she could hold Weiss’s hand again with the other. “Come on, let’s go back. I can’t wait to show these babies to Yang and Blake.”

 

* * *

 

Ruby made them all try it on together, obviously. So that was how Weiss found herself sitting in her Friday morning class, with Yang, Blake, and Ruby scattered across the opposite ends of the hall, the earpiece resting snugly inside her left ear. It was actually surprisingly comfortable, and small enough that it was hard to spot unless someone was specifically looking for it. She almost forgot it existed for a period of time, her attention focused on jotting down notes from the professor’s ongoing lecture.

Then she heard the telltale beeping sound that signaled that one of the others was about to say something.

“Did one of you guys fart?” came Ruby’s barely contained whisper.

Yang burst out laughing in the middle of class. Half of the kids turned to look at her funny. The professor gave her the stink eye, but Yang seemed unphased by it. There was another beep from the earpiece.

“Holy fucking shit, Ruby,” Yang said gleefully. It sounded like she was covering her mouth with her hand. And now Weiss was struggling valiantly to keep the smile off her own face, having to listen to Yang trying her best not to start laughing again in her ear.

They managed to calm it down for a while longer. Weiss kept taking notes. The rest of the students eventually turned their attention back to the lecture. Then, about five minutes later, the beep came again.

Weiss heard an actual farting noise in her ear.

Then Ruby and Yang were both losing it, and Weiss realized that the sound had come from Blake. This time, the professor just sighed, not even bothering to try and chastise them anymore. Weiss rubbed at her face with one hand, bringing the other one up to the earpiece to press the button on it.

“You three are _so_ childish,” she told them, trying her best to sound condescending, but Blake was laughing along with the others now, and it was becoming increasingly harder for her to keep the act up. Yang sounded like she was attempting to placate her. It was hard to understand anything she was saying through her laughter.

Weiss sighed. She looked back down at her notes and realized that she’d stopped writing halfway through a sentence about something relating to the different types of semblances. The professor had already moved on to a different topic.

She figured she should have been much more annoyed by her teammates and their absolutely ridiculous sense of humor, but all she could feel was a sort of begrudging affection towards them. Instead of paying attention to the rest of the lecture, Weiss soon found herself absently doodling a picture of Team RWBY in the margins of her notebook. The others kept cracking up every once in a while through her earpiece. She tried not to smile.

When class ended Ruby at least had the decency to pretend to be sheepish as she approached Weiss at the exit of the lecture hall.

“Hey, on the bright side,” Ruby said slowly, “now we know that the earpieces are fully functional, right?”

Weiss rolled her eyes and cuffed her in the back of her head. “You’re lucky I like you so much.”

Then of course Ruby just _had_ to look at her with that earnest and unconditional happiness in her smile, and it made Weiss’s heart feel like it was doing flips in her chest. Behind them, Blake and Yang were walking up towards them together. If Blake’s giant grin was anything to go by, she obviously did not regret anything she had done during the lecture.

“Hi,” said Blake.

Weiss tried to punch her in the stomach. Blake caught her fist and then brought her hand up to kiss her knuckles. “You’re the worst,” said Weiss, using her free hand to cover her face in embarrassment.

“Sorry we ruined your lecture,” Yang told her, grinning.

“No you’re not,” said Weiss, because she clearly wasn’t.

“Come on, it was a little funny,” said Ruby. She leaned over to nudge Weiss with her elbow. “You can admit that.”

“No, I can’t,” Weiss told her, even as she felt her resolve already beginning to crumble. “At least one person on this team has to be mature enough to not find fart jokes hilarious.”

Yang laughed at that. Blake and Ruby were struggling not to. The four of them headed out of the room, making their way down the hallways back to their dorm together. “Or maybe you’re just a party pooper,” Yang said, her voice teasing.

“She’s right, though,” Blake added with a small smile. “If it weren’t for Weiss, the rest of us would have fallen off the deep end a long time ago.”

“Oh, man. Can you imagine if we had gotten a different teammate who was just as bad as us instead?” Ruby asked. “We’d be a total trainwreck.”

Weiss felt Yang wrap her arm around her shoulders. She glanced up only to find that Yang was already looking curiously back down at her. After a few moments of contemplation, she leaned down and planted a kiss right on the tip of Weiss’s nose. “That’s true. I take it back,” she said as she pulled away, her smile so fond that Weiss felt warm just looking at her. “I will forever be grateful that you’re a part of our team. I wouldn’t trade you for anything. Stick up your ass and all.”

“That was _so_ close to being romantic,” said Weiss, trying to shove Yang away. It didn’t work. Admittedly, she hadn’t tried very hard. Yang just grinned even wider.

“You call that romantic?” she said. “I can do way better than that. Want me to show you?”

Weiss didn’t respond at first, because she was curious, but also a little nervous. Yang waited until Weiss gave her a small, cautious nod before continuing. The second she opened her mouth again, Weiss knew she was done for.

“Okay. Well, let’s see. There are exactly two people on this planet that I have grown to care for as much as I do my sister, and one of them is you. You’re so amazing and talented, and I have enjoyed watching you achieve time and time again whatever the hell it is you put your mind to. Everywhere we go you command the respect of everyone around you, not because of your name, but because you’re just that damn awesome. You’re one of the most hardworking fighters in our year, yet you never flaunt your abilities around. I admire you. I admire everything you do.” Yang paused for a moment and Weiss wondered if her soul was leaving her body. “I love seeing you relaxed and happy. When you first came to Beacon I could see how tense you were all the time. You deserve to be unshackled and free. You deserve the world. I mean it.”

None of them said anything for a long while.

“Jeez, Yang,” Ruby said eventually. “I didn’t even know you had it in you.”

“What can I say?” said Yang with a soft smile. “You guys bring out the best in me.”

“I’m pretty sure you just killed Weiss,” Blake told her.

It was true. Weiss definitely felt like she had died. If her brain hadn’t just been smashed into a million pieces ten times over, she probably would have tried to jump Yang on the spot. Even with all the other students in the hallway and everything.

“I have a question,” she finally managed to say.

“What is it?” asked Yang.

“If one person individually is capable of making me feel this way,” said Weiss, “how am I supposed to survive dating all three of you at once?”

She could feel them all staring at her. Then Yang laughed, and in one swift motion, reached down and scooped Weiss up into her arms. “I guess you’re just gonna have to get used to it,” she said, while Weiss made an embarrassing squeaking noise and immediately covered her face with her hands, mortified. Yang turned to look at Ruby and Blake. “Race you guys back to the room?”

“Oh, you’re going down,” Ruby said immediately. Before Weiss could reorient herself and figure out what exactly she was about to get roped into against her will, Ruby had raced over to Blake and hopped onto her back. Blake almost buckled, mostly out of surprise.

“Wait—Ruby—what?” she said, just barely managing to bring her hands up under Ruby’s legs and catch her before she fell off. Yang had already started running down the hallway with Weiss still in her arms. “Aren’t you the one with superspeed?”

“Yeah, but you’re older than me,” Ruby explained with a happy little grin. Blake just laughed and took off after Weiss and Yang.

The other students hastened to step aside as the four of them came barreling down the hallway. Yang was laughing openly, and even now she was taking care not to jostle Weiss too much while she ran. Behind them, Weiss could hear Ruby shouting, and Blake was laughing as well. They were catching up quick.

A small part of her still wanted to curl up into a ball and stop existing momentarily out of sheer embarrassment, but the feeling was slowly being replaced by one of just pure happiness and carefree joy. Her teammates would always be this silly and fun-loving, and Weiss found that she didn’t really mind it anymore.

 

* * *

 

As the weekend arrived Weiss began to think that maybe Blake had a good point in wanting to wait. So far, they’d all done a pretty good job of keeping things light-hearted for the most part, but as time continued to pass, it became harder and harder to ignore the fact that there were only four days left until the White Fang launched their attack on the Schnee Dust Company mine at the edge of the kingdom.

Blake was taking the pressure the hardest. She was trying her best to hide it, but they could all tell how stressed out she was getting. Weiss herself was starting to feel the tension eating away at her as well. The two of them spent most of the day holed up in their room, alternating between poring over the notes they’d gathered or, in Blake’s case, curling up into a stress-induced ball of panic on her bed.

Since they never figured out what specific time the White Fang was planning to arrive, the four of them had made plans to get there the day before. Which meant on Monday night they had to fight their second battle of the Vytal Festival Tournament, followed by spending the second half of Tuesday traveling to the mine, and then arriving on Wednesday at midnight. The goal was to hopefully intercept the White Fang before they could even get started on whatever it was they were going to do.

By early evening Weiss found herself planting her face into her desk, a pencil in one hand and a stack of notes in the other. If Blake hadn’t moved from her position the last time Weiss had glanced over at her, she was lying facedown on her bed, a book resting open on the back of her head.

They heard the door open. Ruby and Yang walked in, before stopping abruptly a few seconds later. Ruby let out a loud sigh.

“Okay, that’s it,” she announced. “As the fearless leader of this mess of a team, I’m declaring an emergency intervention.”

Weiss brought her head up just in time to see Ruby make her way over to her desk and tug her chair backwards. She flailed for a few moments, thrown off balance. “Wait, what?” she said. “What are you plotting?”

“Something that will distract you two nerds from wallowing in your misery,” Ruby responded, dragging the chair around until Weiss was facing the bunk beds. Over on the other side of the room, Yang had walked up to Blake, taken the book off of her head, and gently rolled her onto her back.

“We’re not wallowing in our misery,” said Blake.

Yang just looked down at her. “Yeah, and I’m not completely head over heels for you and Weiss.”

“Come on, Yang and I are really worried about this whole White Fang business too, but you guys barely left the room all day,” said Ruby from behind Weiss. “So I’ve decided that we’re going to do something together to take all our minds off of it.”

“Like what, exactly?” said Weiss.

“I dunno. A night out on the town or something? We can go get food at a diner together.”

By now Ruby had leaned forward to rest her head atop Weiss’s, and draped her arms around her neck. Weiss sighed and tried to force herself to relax. “So, a date?” she asked. “I thought we were going to wait until afterwards before doing anything.”

“It doesn’t have to be a date,” said Ruby. “It’s been a while since the four of us have gone down to the city during the weekend to unwind. We can just call it team bonding instead.”

“Um, okay.” Despite herself, Weiss smiled. Somehow, just having Ruby and Yang there in the room with them made everything seem a little lighter and less bleak. “Well, I suppose I could be convinced to tag along, then.”

Meanwhile Blake held both of her arms up towards Yang, silently asking her to help pull her up. Yang grinned and obliged her, gathering Blake into her arms and hugging her close. “So does this mean you’re also on board?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Blake, but she was smiling.

“Great.” Yang stood up and pulled Blake to her feet along with her. Then she turned to face Ruby. “Do you wanna call the airship or should I?”

“Nah, we don’t need an airship,” Ruby told her, waving her off.

“What?”

“We’ve got your bike, don’t we?”

Yang just stared at her sister. “My bike which most definitely cannot fit four people on it?”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Ruby said cheerfully.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, Yang's motorcycle _was_ in fact capable of carrying all four of them at once.

Weiss had a feeling that Ruby had been itching to try this out for quite some time now. They’d all voted that Weiss could be the one who got to sit on the actual seat like a normal person and press up against Yang while she drove. Blake was perched on the very back of the bike like a cat, while Ruby was up front, in front of the handlebars, literally clinging on for dear life. That didn’t stop her from shouting gleefully at the top of her lungs as they cruised down the street, though.

Weiss kept a tight grip around Yang’s midsection, pressing the side of her face against her back. She could feel Yang’s shoulders shaking from her laughter. They were whipping by too fast for Weiss to focus on any of the individual people on the sidewalk, but it wasn’t hard to imagine that they were probably getting a ton of weird looks.

There were so many reasons why this whole situation was crazy and dangerous and ridiculous, but Ruby was still cheering, and Yang and Blake were laughing, and Weiss thought she’d never felt more alive than she did in that moment.

Eventually the joyride came to an end and they pulled into the parking lot of a diner. Weiss was the first to clamber off of the motorcycle, glancing up at the diner’s blinking neon sign. It was a nice, cozy place, and its relatively close distance to the school made it a pretty popular spot for Beacon students to hang out and grab some food while in Vale.

“Are you okay there?” Weiss asked as she watched Blake hop off the bike and dust herself off.

Blake just shrugged lightly and smiled at her. “Still in one piece,” she said, holding out her hands for Weiss to inspect. Weiss decided to humor her and take her hands with her own, linking their fingers together after a few moments.

A few feet away, Ruby was shaking herself, apparently trying to regain her balance. She staggered a bit. Yang caught her before she could fall over.

“That was awesome,” said Ruby, grinning.

Yang laughed. “You’re nuts.” She shoved Ruby, who nearly toppled over again. “We are never doing that ever again.”

“We still have to get back to Beacon after this,” Ruby told her.

“Don’t remind me,” said Yang.

They headed inside together. It wasn’t long before they found an empty booth in the corner and sat down. Weiss took a window seat and felt Blake slide in after her, while Ruby and Yang settled in across from them. A waiter came over and handed out a couple menus and water before leaving them alone again.

“Wow,” Ruby said in awe, poring over her menu excitedly. “They serve breakfast for dinner here? Neat. I’m gonna get pancakes.”

Yang had one arm resting on the table, her palm face up while she scanned her own menu. Blake reached out and put her hand on top of Yang’s, her other arm coming up to rest around Weiss’s shoulders. Weiss turned to stare at Blake. It wasn’t long before she became entranced by her.

“What do you think I should get, Weiss?” Blake asked. Weiss snapped back into reality and realized Blake was looking back at her with a small, teasing smile. Her hand came up to play absently with Weiss’s earring. Weiss tried her best not to pass out.

“I—I’m not sure,” she managed to say.

Now Yang was looking at her too. “Pretty sure she was too busy staring at you to even think about ordering something,” she told Blake, grinning. “Which is extremely adorable, by the way.”

“Well, I’m flattered,” said Blake. She was still smiling, and it was doing funny things to Weiss’s heart. Weiss wondered if there would ever come a time when her teammates would stop affecting her this drastically just by existing near her.

In the end Blake was the only one who actually ordered something meant for dinner, some almost fancy dish with grilled salmon in it. The rest of them got breakfast items, Ruby and Yang because they wanted to eat bacon and pancakes, and Weiss because she was coerced into joining them.

While they waited for their food to arrive, Ruby and Yang started attempting to stack the various condiments and dispensers on the table into a giant tower. Weiss watched them, distantly aware of the fact that she was smiling, and tried not to laugh when the stuff on the top half of the tower tumbled off. Meanwhile, Blake had been inching her way closer and closer to Weiss’s side. At this point she was basically attached to her, hugging her tightly and burying her face into the crook of Weiss’s neck. Weiss closed her eyes and just enjoyed the feeling.

“I’m glad that we came out here tonight,” Blake said softly. “I think I was starting to lose my mind back there.”

“Yeah,” said Weiss.

Ruby paused from the tower-building long enough to roll up her straw wrapper into a wad and flick it at Weiss. It hit her in the forehead. With Blake still pressed up against her, Weiss couldn’t even find it in herself to be annoyed. “I’ll always look out for you guys,” Ruby said, suddenly serious. “We’re a team. We’re—well, you know. You all mean a lot to me.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Yang agreed. “It might be a little rough going right now, but at least we’ll always have each other.” She smiled at all of them. Weiss’s heart felt full.

The service at the diner was surprisingly good. They got their food a short while later, and it wasn’t until it was sitting in front of her that Weiss realized how hungry she was. The four of them dug in. There wasn’t a lot of room left for talking while they ate, but that apparently wasn’t enough to stop Weiss from getting repeatedly distracted by staring at someone. She never realized she was doing it, either, until one of the others caught her. It was almost enough to make her want to sink underneath the table in embarrassment. At least the way they’d all smile back at her made her feel slightly better about it.

“Have I ever told you guys about how cute I think Weiss is?” Yang said.

“Yeah, like all the time. You’re definitely right, though,” said Ruby. She reached over and stabbed her fork onto a piece of bacon on Yang’s plate. Yang grabbed her by the wrist, looking ready to fight her, but after a few seconds of thinking she relented, leaned down to take a bite out of the bacon, and let Ruby have the rest. Ruby looked at Weiss and grinned in victory.

“It’s true. Weiss is the cutest,” Blake joined in.

“Why is it always me who gets picked on?” said Weiss with a huff. “Can we pick on someone else for once? Like Yang. How come we never make fun of her?”

“That is also true,” said Blake, turning her attention to Yang with a faint smile. “Yang is such a wonderful, caring, and considerate person. I feel like we don’t tell her that enough.” Weiss nodded in agreement, and to her delight, Yang reacted the way she always did when one of them showed her some love instead of the other way around, by freezing up and smiling that big dumb smile of hers. It was somehow so endearing. Weiss could feel herself warming up inside just looking at her.

“Oh come on, guys,” Yang said, trying to sound nonchalant. She scooted back in her seat, the smile never once leaving her face. “That’s just unfair.”

Ruby kept munching away on her food. “Personally, I think Yang is ugly,” she said simply. “I don’t know what you guys see in her, honestly.”

Yang laughed and shoved her sister away by the face. “Thanks. I dunno what they see in you, either, but here we are.”

Gradually they began to finish up their food, and sat around waiting to pay for the meal. Weiss was content with resting her head on Blake’s shoulder to pass the time. A while later, she felt the table shaking. She opened her eyes and saw Ruby and Yang determinedly not looking at each other. The table shook again.

“What are you two doing?” she asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” said Ruby.

Weiss sighed and leaned down to glance underneath the table. Sure enough, the two of them were trying to scuffle with each other.

“This was a terrible seating arrangement, by the way,” Yang said to Weiss and Blake, doing an admirable job of maintaining a blank expression as she kept attempting to kick Ruby in the shin. “I don’t get to cuddle with anyone I want to, and I have to spend the entire time dealing with this little gremlin here instead.”

“No one’s telling to you sit with me, stupid.” Ruby tried to knock Yang out of the booth. It didn’t work.

“I think that was my fault,” said Blake, although she didn’t look apologetic at all. “I just wanted to hog Weiss all to myself tonight, I guess.”

By the time they finally left the diner all four of them were in high spirits. Nobody wanted to go back to Beacon so early in the night, so they spent a while just taking a stroll down the streets nearby. Weiss could barely even remember what it was that she had been so worked up about earlier in the day. Sure, the White Fang threat was still looming on the horizon, growing closer every day, but Weiss knew that as long as she had Yang, Blake, and Ruby by her side, there was nothing really she had to worry about. Whatever problems the world decided to throw their way, they would power through it together.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhey um so apologies for the delay. this chapter got a lot bigger than i was anticipating, so i split it. kinda? who the fuck knows lmao
> 
> i'm going to rtx this weekend and doing some stuff after that so my schedule will probably continue to be wack for a little longer. really sorry about that! but in the meantime i hope you enjoy what i got down so far, and thank you as always for all of your wonderful comments!!

If it hadn’t been for her wonderful and kind and caring teammates, Blake knew she probably would have stressed herself into the ground by now. They’d been nothing but patient and considerate so far, even as the day of the White Fang attack drew closer and closer. She wasn’t really sure what she had done to deserve such amazing people in her life, but she appreciated it all the same.

It was Monday late at night, and Blake was in the bathroom taking a shower. They had just finished up their second tournament match of the team bracket. It had been against Team CRDL, of all people. Blake couldn’t really remember much about the fight, besides the fact that Cardin and his boys had spent most of the time alternating between trying to trash talk them and getting their ass kicked. She’d been too distracted to focus much on the details. They’d managed to win by total knockout once again, but with everything that was about to go down in two days, none of them were really in the mood to celebrate this time.

Blake shook herself out of her thoughts and finished rinsing herself off before getting out of the shower. She got dressed and left the bathroom. Yang went in after her. Then Blake started to head over to her own bed, only to find Weiss already sitting on it, leaning against the pillows and looking extremely content nestled up in Blake’s dark purple hoodie.

“That’s mine,” said Blake, dropping her towel on the ground beside her bed. She climbed on and neatly fit herself in between Weiss’s legs, resting her chin on Weiss’s chest and staring up into her eyes. Weiss just smiled and started running her hands through Blake’s hair.

“Well, I like wearing it,” she responded. Blake let out a sigh of contentment and closed her eyes, feeling the tension slowly easing out of her body. On the other side of the room, they heard Ruby let out a snort from where she watching them atop her own bed.

“You’ve had that for a while now,” she said innocently to Weiss. “Shouldn’t you maybe think about being a nice person and let me have a turn with it again?”

“Since when did this become a matter of sharing?” said Weiss.

“Oh come on. It’s basically a team hoodie at this point and you know it.”

“Even if that’s the case, wouldn’t that mean it should go to Yang next, since she’s gone the longest without it so far?”

“Or you guys could just give it back to me,” Blake interjected. “You know, seeing as I’m the actual owner of it and all.”

Ruby and Weiss both looked at her.

“Nah, that sounds boring,” said Ruby. Weiss just nodded in agreement. Blake couldn’t help but laugh.

“Thanks, you two,” she said.

“No problem,” Ruby said brightly.

They stayed that way for a while longer. Eventually Ruby hopped down from her bed so she could join them and settle in next to Weiss. Blake felt herself relaxing against them as the three of them sat there together, listening to Yang whistling a tune in the shower. When her teammates were around, it was almost easy to just forget about the things that were troubling her, even if it was only for a little bit.

Yang left the bathroom after a while, all fresh and clean and wearing Blake’s leather jacket. Ruby laughed the second she saw it. By the time Blake managed to twist around to get a good look at her, Yang had come up to them and high-fived Weiss’s outstretched hand.

“Nice,” said Yang, grinning.

Blake sighed and went back to burying her face in Weiss’s chest again. “Not you too,” she said.

“Well, what can I say?” said Yang as she sat down on Weiss’s other side, forcing them to squeeze closer together so that nobody was at risk of falling off the bed. “Great minds think alike. And great minds know that Blake’s clothes are extremely soft and comfortable.”

“Aw, now I’m jealous,” Ruby said, pouting a little. “This is totally unfair, I want a Blake jacket too!”

“Sucks to suck,” said Yang. She glanced down at Blake. Her expression softened. “Hey. You okay there?”

“Yeah,” Blake managed to say. “Sorry. I’m just thinking about tomorrow. Ruby, you can take some of my clothes if you want.”

Ruby blinked. “Wait, no,” she said hastily. She reached out and took Blake’s hand into her own, giving it a comforting squeeze. “I didn’t really mean it. I was just joking around, it’s okay.”

Blake glanced up at Ruby and offered her a small smile. “I know. And I appreciate it. I… I know I haven’t exactly been the easiest person to deal with these past couple of days.”

“Hey, don’t say that,” said Yang. “You are who you are, and we’ll never fault you for that. This is a big deal. Honestly, it would probably be weirder if you weren’t stressed out at all. But we’ve always got your back.”

Blake’s heart felt full. Ruby started fidgeting a bit. They all turned to look at her, confused.

“What are you doing?” Weiss asked her.

“Nothing,” said Ruby. She frowned. “I want to give Blake a hug or cuddle with her or something to show my support, but I can’t because you’re taking up all the space.”

“Maybe you should have gotten here sooner, then.” Weiss stuck her tongue out at Ruby. Yang had to struggle not to laugh. But then Ruby started looking like she wasn’t about to let Weiss and Blake’s current positioning stop her from pouncing on them. Her stare grew more calculating.

“Wait, Ruby. What are you d—” Before Blake could finish her sentence, Ruby flat out decided to just roll over and fall on top of them anyway. Weiss choked underneath her. They all ended up in a mess of a heap, and soon Blake couldn’t really tell what was going on anymore. Ruby and Yang were laughing, Weiss was shouting indignantly, and Blake knew that as long as she had her teammates around, nothing could put a damper on her mood for long.

But as the night continued on and they eventually had to disperse and go to bed, Blake could feel her thoughts coming back to her alone in the darkness. She tried to push them away. They had a long day ahead of them tomorrow, and she needed all the sleep she could get, but the constant worry at the back of her head was making it impossible.

She tossed and turned for a bit. In the bunk above her, Yang was snoring softly, like she always did. Blake tried to find comfort in the familiar sound. It wasn’t working.

After a few minutes of uneasy shifting Blake heard a small thump on the other side of the room. She jumped and rolled around to find Ruby getting up from the ground and walking slowly towards her bed, her hands raised slightly in a placating way.

“Hey,” she whispered. “It’s just me.”

“Ruby?” Blake asked quietly, a little confused. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“Nah, you didn’t. I couldn’t really sleep either,” Ruby reassured her. She smiled. “I just wanted to check up on you.”

“Oh.” Blake glanced up into Ruby’s earnest expression, her chest feeling warm, then looked back down at her bed. “I mean, it’s just more of the usual. You know. Me being overly stressed.”

“That’s okay,” said Ruby. She brought one leg up and rested her knee on the mattress. “Scoot over?”

“What?” said Blake, but she did as Ruby asked. Then Ruby crawled onto the bed and settled in next to Blake, facing her and pressing in close. After a few seconds of surprise Blake had just enough sense left to remember to tug the covers back over both of their shoulders.

“Maybe it’ll be easier if you aren’t alone,” Ruby told her softly.

Blake let out a small laugh and wrapped her arm around Ruby’s shoulders, pulling her in until they were snuggled up together. “How are you so wonderful?” she asked, watching as Ruby scooted around a bit until she could comfortably tuck her head into Blake’s chest.

“Hey, don’t give me too much credit now,” said Ruby. Blake didn’t have to see her face to know that she was smiling. “I mean, it’s not like you’re the only one who’s benefiting here.”

“Right, of course,” said Blake.

She already felt a lot better than she had just a few moments ago, with Ruby now comfortably pressed up against her. “You know,” Ruby began a little absently, “the bunk beds were cool and all, but it’s going to make group cuddling a lot more complicated.”

“What is this?” said Blake, grinning. “ _You_ of all people are denouncing our bunk beds? Wasn’t it your idea in the first place?”

“Shut up,” said Ruby. She huffed and tightened her grip on Blake’s shirt. “I said they were cool, didn’t I? But nothing beats getting to cuddle with all of you guys. And if it means having to sacrifice the bunk beds so we can do that… then so be it.”

“You’re so sweet.” Blake brought one hand up and started gently playing with the tips of Ruby’s hair. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll probably accept whatever sleeping arrangement you decide is best for the team.”

Ruby laughed. “Thank you for the support,” she said. “We should probably be quiet now, though. I bet we already woke Weiss up with our noisiness.”

“Probably,” Blake agreed, glancing over Ruby’s head to the opposite side of the room. Weiss was lying on her side, facing them, her eyes determinedly squeezed shut. 

“Yeah,” said Ruby, intentionally raising her voice a bit. “It sure is a good thing she isn’t awake, though, right Blake? Because she would probably be super jealous of us that we’re together here in the same bed and she’s all alone over there. It might even make her ask me to get rid of the bunk beds too so that we can all be together, don’t you think?”

Blake had to stop herself from laughing out loud. She saw Weiss’s face twitch, her eyes still closed, trying to hold back a smile of her own. “Okay, that’s enough out of you, you little troublemaker. I thought you came over here to help me sleep better, not keep me awake all night.”

“Okay, okay,” said Ruby, relenting with a content sigh. She tilted her head up a bit to press a sleepy kiss to Blake’s chin. “G’nite then, Blake.”

“Goodnight, Ruby.”

 

* * *

 

The second classes were over the next day at noon they took an airship out of Beacon and into the city. It wasn’t uncommon for students to hang out in Vale after school had finished for the day, so if anyone eventually noticed they were missing, hopefully they would check the airship records and just assume they were being dumb teenagers skipping class to play around in the city.

Once they landed, it was another slog of heading to the nearest train station, taking one a few stops out, and then hiking two miles away to a separate industrial station so that they could sneak aboard the cargo train that would take them all the way to the mine. For once Blake was grateful for all the meticulous planning they’d done beforehand. The train arrived right on the expected time, and it wasn’t too much of a hassle to jump onto one of the cars in the back and find a place to settle in for the rest of the day.

It was a long ride, though, and not a very comfortable one either. Since it was too risky to take shelter inside the car and run the chance of getting caught by security, they decided to set up camp on top of it instead. Blake had to grip the raised edges of the roof to keep her balance against the wind as the train raced down the tracks. An hour passed, then two, and she decided that maybe she’d had enough of hijacking trains to last her a lifetime.

There wasn’t much to do while they waited. At some point Yang must have gotten tired of playing hand games with Ruby, because she scooted over and around to press herself up against Blake’s back, hugging her close. Blake closed her eyes and sank into Yang’s arms. It was a pretty good way of calming her nerves. They sat like that for a while, watching the landscape whip by.

Gradually the earth started sloping upwards. The four of them shared a quick, measly dinner of packed sandwiches around evening as the sky began to darken and the wind started picking up. Blake wondered what their friends were doing, and if any of them had noticed they’d gone missing yet. The train was going at a pretty steep incline now, the sharp rigid mountains rising up all around them. Blake shivered a bit. Yang hugged her tighter. Weiss and Ruby shifted closer to them.

Then, finally, the tracks flattened out, opening up into a wide valley. In the center was a massive series of deep, gaping holes drilled deep into the ground. There were all sorts of buildings and machinery and pathways built around the pits. They had reached the mine.

“We should probably get off soon,” Blake said to the others, peering through the darkness up ahead. “The train’s going to be pulling into the station in a bit—I think those are robots waiting there.”

So they got up and hopped off just before the train began to pull to a stop. Blake felt her entire body aching from sitting for so long as her feet hit the rocky ground. The four of them skirted around the station and kept to the very edges of the mine, searching for a place to set up camp for the night without being spotted.

After a while Blake noticed that Weiss was starting to fall behind. She kept pausing to stare in the general direction of the mine, frowning. Blake slowed her steps a bit, letting Yang and Ruby take the lead, until Weiss eventually caught up to her.

“You okay?” she asked.

Weiss looked up at her, considering the question for a moment. She let out a small sigh. “I think so,” she said. “I grew up hearing and learning plenty about the company’s mines, but…” She trailed off for a few moments, looking like she was deep in thought. “I don’t know. Seeing it in person is just different, I guess.”

“Yeah,” said Blake. She reached out and took Weiss’s hand, intertwining their fingers together. “I think I can understand that.”

It was dark and cold and windy out but they managed to find a decent spot to rest a little ways up one of the nearby mountains. With the height advantage, they could see most of the mine pretty clearly, and some well-placed boulders and rock formations helped to hide them from view.

“You guys can go to sleep now,” said Ruby. “I’ll take first watch.”

“One hour,” Yang told her, because they all knew Ruby had a tendency to try and shoulder most of the burden when it came to stuff like this. “Then we switch or I’m kicking you off the mountain.”

“That’s rude,” said Ruby.

“I wonder how much force it would take to actually launch Ruby off of this mountain,” Weiss said absently, her gaze unfocused.

Ruby laughed and dashed forward to grab Weiss by the shoulders, since she was starting to sway a bit on her feet. “Okay, you’re _really_ out of it,” she said, grinning when Weiss let her head fall forward, pressing their foreheads together. “Get some rest, okay? We can figure out the answer to that question later, if you want.”

“Okay.” Weiss was staring shamelessly at Ruby’s mouth, her eyes half-open. Ruby gave her a gentle push, sending her tumbling backwards right into Yang’s waiting arms. Then Yang turned to Blake and flashed her a smile.

“Wanna set up the sleeping bags for us?” she asked. “Cause, you know, my hands are kind of full at the moment.”

Blake just rolled her eyes, amused. “You’re all a bunch of dorks,” she told them affectionately. 

She got the sleeping bags rolled out together in a neat line while Weiss turned around and tried not to fall asleep standing up against Yang.

“We didn’t even do anything today,” she was mumbling into Yang’s chest. “I feel like a weakling.”

“Traveling can be exhausting,” Yang said gently. “Besides, you’ve been working your brain nonstop for a lot longer.” She tapped the side of Weiss’s forehead, which made her scrunch up her face in protest.

“Yeah, no,” Blake agreed, feeling her knees starting to give out. She crashed out on top of one of the sleeping bags. “I’m starting to feel it, too.” 

Soon after she felt Yang settle in next to her, with Weiss sandwiched in between them. Blake wrapped an arm around Weiss’s midsection, tugging her in close while looking up at Yang from over the top of her head. Yang just smiled back at her.

“One hour,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

Blake laughed. “If you keep that up I might start thinking you actually want to punt your sister across the mine.”

“Why not?” said Yang. “It sounds like it could be fun.”

“Go to sleep, Yang.”

“Yessir.”

Blake sighed and closed her eyes. The last thing she saw before slowly drifting off was Yang’s bright, happy smile.

 

* * *

 

None of them were expecting the White Fang to arrive on the dot at midnight, but it didn’t hurt to be safe. They kept watch on rotation, all the way until the sky began to brighten again. Blake spent her entire early morning shift carefully scanning the mine. She could see smoke rising out from a cluster of buildings in the distance, and a few security robots patrolling the premises, which implied that at least some parts of the mine were now in operation. Yet she hadn’t even caught sight of a single worker above ground. It made her wonder if the company was making them sleep under the surface. Then she forced herself to think about something else, because that train of thought was starting to make her feel sick.

Behind her, Blake heard the sound of someone shifting. She turned around to find Yang trying to extract herself from underneath Ruby and Weiss, both of whom were clinging onto her tightly. She eventually managed to squirm her way out of their grips without waking either of them up and headed over to where Blake was perched atop a small boulder.

“Hey,” she said, rubbing at her eye with one hand.

“Hi,” said Blake. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Yang smiled at her. Then she settled down next to Blake, looking out onto the mine below. “See anything interesting?”

“No terrorists yet, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Blake. She pointed down at the robots. “It looks like the place is starting up for the day, though.”

“Interesting,” said Yang, squinting further into the distance. “How come there are no workers around, then?”

“That’s what I’m wondering, too,” said Blake with a frown. “I thought maybe they’re already all down in the tunnels or something. I dunno. This whole place seems so sketchy, I hate it.” She shifted around uncomfortably. 

Yang reached out and put an arm around her shoulder, leaning over to rest her head against Blake’s. “Hey,” she said softly. “We’ll figure it out. Go get some rest, I can take it from here.”

“Okay,” said Blake. She closed her eyes, enjoying the comfort of having Yang so close to her for a few moments longer before getting up and heading back to the sleeping bags. Almost immediately after she had settled down, Ruby somehow managed to attach herself to her side. Blake smiled, gazing into Ruby’s face, her expression so relaxed and peaceful in her sleep.

It wasn’t until a couple hours later that one of them noticed something was wrong.

“Hey, guys?” Weiss said, being the one currently on watch. Her voice was tense. The way she’d said it was enough to instantly jolt Blake awake and make her scramble to her feet. Her abrupt movements had roused Yang and Ruby too. “I think they’re here.”

Blake came to a stop next to Weiss and followed where she was pointing into the distance. Sure enough, on the opposite side of the mine, there was a slow but steady procession of White Fang grunts making their way towards the gaping pits in the ground. They were so far away that Blake couldn’t make out where they were coming from, or what they were carrying, but one thing was obvious. 

There were a _lot_ of them.

“What the hell,” she said. “Did they just all—why the hell are there so many of them here? What are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” Weiss said quietly.

By then, Yang and Ruby had approached as well. The four of them stood together, staring out into the mine, watching helplessly as the White Fang line marched onward.

“Where did all the security go?” Blake knew she was starting to work herself up into a panic. Weiss put a hand on her shoulder, trying to give it a comforting squeeze. “There’s supposed to be robots all over the place. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe the White Fang disabled it beforehand,” said Ruby, her expression grim and determined. “We need to get down there, now.”

“No,” said Blake. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the White Fang. They just kept coming and coming. There were so many. “We can’t just—there’s too many of them. We’ll get overwhelmed.”

“Then let’s split up and stay out of sight,” Ruby decided. “It looks like they’re headed for the back end, right? Me and Weiss can get over there and find out what exactly they’re up to. Blake, you and Yang try the front. See if there’s other ways to get in so we don’t have to have a run-in with them.”

They haphazardly cleaned up their little hiding spot and then departed. Blake grabbed onto Yang’s hand. She’d thought the weeks leading up to the attack had been bad. But now that it was actually happening right in front of her, and now that she and her teammates were tasked with stopping it, she felt so jittery from the nerves that she thought she might explode. 

Yang didn’t say anything as they picked their way down the slope and headed deeper into the mine, but every once in a while she would brush her thumb over the back of Blake’s hand, letting her know she wasn’t alone. Ruby and Weiss had long since dashed off.

Everything seemed haunting and empty. There weren’t many buildings, but the ones they passed by looked unoccupied. The one row of security robots they ran into had indeed been shut down. They were just standing there upright, lifeless and motionless.

Blake and Yang made their way closer and closer to one of the actual Dust mining pits. At the edge of it was what looked like an extremely shoddy, rotting elevator shaft. Yang stepped up to it, glancing down into the darkness below and frowning. There wasn’t even a railing or anything to prevent people from falling in. Blake had to tug her back out of fear.

Yang reached up and pressed the button on her earpiece. “Hey, Ruby? You guys there?”

At first, neither Ruby or Weiss responded. Blake felt the dread start settling into her stomach. Realistically, she knew they could handle themselves and were probably fine, but her brain was currently operating on a level that was nowhere near realistic. 

Then the beep came, almost a minute later.

“Yeah,” came Ruby’s hushed whisper. “Sorry. We, uh, were kind of in a dangerous spot. What’s up?”

“I think we found a way in,” said Yang. “It’s… it sure isn’t pretty, though.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing,” said Ruby. There was a pause. “Speaking of which, we kinda found out what the White Fang are doing.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“They’re… um. They’re heading in through what I’m assuming is the back entrance. And… they’ve got tons of bombs with them.”

“ _What_?” said Blake.

“I think,” Ruby said uneasily, “a part of me was hoping that they were just coming here to free all the Faunus workers or something. But they’re really here to just blow the entire place up, I guess.”

“That’s insane,” said Blake. Distantly she noticed that she might have started hyperventilating. “They can’t. They _wouldn’t_ just—there’s no way. There’s no way. I can’t believe it…” She fumbled to pull her scroll out of her pocket and open it up. “We can’t do this on our own. I—I never thought the White Fang would stoop all the way down here, to killing their own kind… We have to get Professor Ozpin here. Or General Ironwood. Or someone. Anyone.” 

She tried to start a call to Ozpin on her scroll. It rang once and then failed. The little notification popped up on her screen, wrecking whatever little shred of hope she’d had remaining. 

“Low signal,” Yang cursed. “We’re too far out. Looks like it’s just the four of us, then.”

“No, wait,” came Weiss’s voice, trying to find reason in the rapidly deteriorating situation. “Low signal doesn’t mean no signal at all. Just keep calling. Something has to get through eventually.”

“Blake?” said Ruby. “Blake? Are you okay?”

It occurred to Blake then that she’d been breathing so hard the earpiece had picked it up. She tried to come up with an answer, but all she could think about was how the White Fang used to only use violence against humans to get what they wanted, and now they didn’t even seem to care that they were about to kill countless Faunus in collateral damage. “Is it just because this mine is owned by the Schnee Dust Company?” she choked out. “Is that it?”

“Blake…” said Ruby.

“You two, get your asses over here, now,” said Yang. “I’ve got Blake. There’s no time to waste. Come up to the front, we’re near the elevator shaft that goes down to the biggest pit.”

“We’re on it.”

Blake almost didn’t hear Ruby and Weiss’s response. The next thing she knew, Yang was holding her by her arms, shaking her slightly. “Blake. Hey, Blake. Can you hear me?”

“I—I don’t—”

“Blake.” Yang reached up and grabbed the sides of her face, pulling her closer until their foreheads were touching. “Listen to me. This is a shitty situation, and we’re all terrified right now. Hell, even I’m scared shitless. But we’ve still got each other, okay? We’ve gotten out of scrapes together before. We can do it again. Ruby and Weiss are coming and we’re going to figure something out together and make it work _together_. If you can’t put your trust in yourself right now, that’s fine. Put it in the four of us, working together as a team.”

Blake took a couple of deep, shaky breaths. She forced herself to focus on Yang’s touch, and the way it slowly grounded her again. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Yang told her. “I know you can do this. You’ve got this.”

Blake could only manage to nod in response. She held onto Yang's wrists as tight as she could.

While they waited for Ruby and Weiss to get there, Yang stepped up to inspect the elevator again, never once letting go of Blake’s hand. She eventually found the access panel half-hanging off the side and hit the button. A horrible screeching noise sounded as something down the shaft began moving.

By the time the elevator platform finally rattled its way back up to the top, Ruby and Weiss had arrived. They rushed closer as soon as they caught sight of Yang and Blake. Ruby eyed the elevator warily.

“Is that how we’re supposed to get down there?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Yang.

“You’d think the Schnee Dust Company would have access to some of the most advanced technology in the world, being based in Atlas and all,” said Weiss. She looked stricken. “Yet they can’t even bother to install the most basic safety precautions in this entire mine?”

“There were robots,” said Blake, without any intent to actually argue the point. The whole thing was so ridiculous that nobody even bothered to respond.

They all piled onto the rickety platform. The door closed behind them, and with another screeching sound, the elevator began to descend down into the darkness. Blake huddled close to the rest of her teammates, just holding each other, drawing strength from their embrace. Ruby had her scroll out. They kept trying to call Ozpin’s emergency contact, the one that all Beacon students got at the start of the year to use if things ever went south. None of the calls went through. Going deeper and deeper underground definitely wasn’t helping.

After what felt like forever the elevator finally hit the ground, opening up into a massive, deep tunnel. A long stripe of fluorescent light lined each wall, and there were wooden beams placed to hold up the ceiling every now and then, but besides that, there was just dirt and rocks and darkness.

The four of them headed out and into the tunnel. No one said anything. The tunnel was eerily quiet, the only sounds Blake could make out being their footsteps and some clanking noises coming from up ahead. They passed by more unmoving robots. The whole atmosphere made Blake feel like she was walking towards her execution or something. When they reached the end of the tunnel, she found out why.

It opened up into an enormous, vast cave. Blake stopped at the edge of the raised platform, trying to take in everything that was going on deep below her. It looked like a vast majority of the workers were in this single area. Some of the Faunus were hauling heavy carts around and nearly dislocating their joints in the process. Others were operating dangerous-looking machinery without any safety precautions whatsoever and powering away at the rock wall. There were a couple guys who seemed slightly better dressed than the others, which wasn’t saying much, and waving their arms around, trying to direct the flow of work.

All of them looked dirty, exhausted, and absolutely miserable.

Blake fell to her knees, her vision going dizzy. She tried to grip onto the bars of the railing for support. Someone was trying to pull her back up again, repeating words in her ear. It sounded like Yang.

Growing up, she’d heard countless horrendous stories about the terrible working conditions in the mines. Seeing it all in person, though, witnessing firsthand how many of the workers looked like they were dead men standing upright, was a thousand times worse. A few feet away from Blake, Weiss didn’t seem to be handling the sight very well, either.

“We have to stop them,” said Blake, barely able to focus on her words. “The White Fang. They were supposed to help these Faunus get better lives. Not… not murder them indiscriminately just because they work for the Schnee Dust Company.”

“Then let’s do this.” Ruby helped Yang pull Blake back to her feet. She leaned on them heavily for support, and noticed Weiss doing the same on Ruby’s other side. “Yang, let’s go find out where they’re placing those bombs and defuse them. Blake, Weiss, you two try to distract them while we do that, okay? Right now the only thing we can do is damage control. We can’t come into conflict with the White Fang head-on, especially with all these innocent workers nearby. Stall for time and keeping trying to call for help, got it?”

Ruby waited for all of them to nod in acknowledgement, then she pulled her rifle out, gripping it tightly in both of her hands. She darted down the side of the platform, Yang following soon after her. Blake turned to Weiss, who looked like her entire world had been turned upside down.

“You too, huh?” she said.

“I didn’t know.” Weiss looked desperately up into Blake’s eyes, almost like she was pleading for forgiveness. “I mean, I did, sort of. But not to this extent.”

“I believe you,” said Blake, and meant it. She stepped forward and wrapped Weiss up in a hug. Weiss immediately returned the embrace. “We’re going to do something about it. After all of this is over. Right now, we have a job to do.”

When they pulled apart Weiss’s expression had morphed into one of renewed determination. Blake took Gambol Shroud off her back and clutched it tightly. “Let’s do this,” Weiss said resolutely.

They descended into the cave together. None of the Faunus workers had enough energy left to even pay them any mind.

 

* * *

 

Blake and Weiss lasted maybe a full hour before getting caught.

They’d followed the sounds of the White Fang grunts in the tunnels branching off from that main cave, communicating with Ruby and Yang the whole time, letting them know where the bombs were being planted. Then they’d lure the grunts away from the spot with Blake’s clones, or flashes of light from the various types of Dust in Weiss’s rapier. Blake kept one finger on the call button on her scroll, hoping against hope that the signal would finally connect them to someone who could bring more help. The battery was draining, fast.

Then Blake heard White Fang grunts approaching towards them from one end of a tunnel, and motioned for Weiss to follow her in the opposite direction. They made it a couple feet before Blake realized that there were footsteps coming from that way as well. They were cornered. Blake tried not to panic.

The first group rounded the corner. “We’re almost done here,” the guy at the front was saying. He looked like the squad’s leader. “Let’s get moving and get out of here before—what.”

Everyone stopped moving. Weiss had Blake’s wrist in a death grip. The two of them automatically moved until they were back-to-back with each other, holding out their weapons at the oncoming White Fang grunts.

“Hey, boss, isn’t that the Schnee girl?” said one of the grunts after a long, painful silence.

It was hard to see in the dim light of the tunnel and through the squad leader’s mask, but he broke into a sinister grin. “Well, isn’t this  a fun surprise?” he said, pulling out his gun. The rest of his group did the same. “I say it’s time we teach the little rat a lesson, don’t you think?”

“Don’t,” said Blake, even though she knew it was useless. “You’re going after the wrong person, she’s not here to hurt the Faunus—”

The leader charged, firing off shots as he went. Blake was forced to deflect them with her weapon. Then the tunnel descended into chaos.

Within seconds Blake and Weiss were swarmed. Someone must have notified the rest of the White Fang, because grunts were starting to pour in from both directions. Blake did her best to repel them, but most of them were going after Weiss, mindlessly hungry for a chance to take her head off. 

Even then, Blake noticed that Weiss was doing her best to only knock them out, not kill them outright. She kept slashing with her blade instead of stabbing, using her glyphs to dodge and maneuver around the grunts instead of standing her ground and exploding them in their faces with her Dust. Blake wanted to scream at her. She understood why Weiss had suddenly become resistant to the idea of killing Faunus, terrorist or otherwise, but out of all the times to get cold feet, being in the middle of battle with people who wanted to tear her limb for limb was definitely one of the worst.

“Guys, what’s going on?” came Ruby’s panicked voice in Blake’s earpiece. “We can hear fighting, are you two okay?”

“Don’t worry about us,” Blake managed to respond, knocking a trio of grunts to the ground with one wide slash. “Focus on getting rid of those bombs. Weiss and I can handle this.”

Almost right after she had finished saying that, someone shot her in the stomach. The bullet bounced off her Aura, keeping her intact, but she doubled over from the pain, wincing. Now Yang was shouting in her ear, too.

They were losing. It soon became obvious that Weiss was starting to get unsteady. The White Fang grunts were trying to dogpile her, and she couldn’t keep up with the constant onslaught anymore. Blake turned her head just in time to watch in horror as an entire ring of grunts surrounded her, firing their guns at the same time. Weiss could only deflect so many of the shots. The rest shattered her Aura. She took a blow to the head from a grunt’s sword, and fell to the ground.

For a moment, Blake felt like time was standing still.

Then something inside her snapped.

She screamed. The next thing she was aware of, all the White Fang grunts in their immediate vicinity had been thoroughly knocked out. “Back up,” she heard herself saying. Her clones phased out of existence. The shock of suddenly having someone screaming in their faces after taking down several rows of their fellow brothers made the rest of the grunts pause. “Do I have to repeat myself?” Blake’s voice shook with the effort. She held her sheath out in one hand, her pistol raised in the other. “Back. The fuck. _Up_!”

One of the grunts didn’t get the memo and tried to step forward anyway. Blake fired two bullets in quick succession, one sinking into each of the guy’s legs. He crumpled to the ground, crying out in pain. None of the others dared to move after that. Behind her, Blake could hear Weiss struggling to push herself up, clearly injured and winded.

“Someone tell me something real quick.” Blake noticed one of the grunts trying to aim his gun at Weiss. She shot it out of his hand. Then she turned her attention back to the squad leader, pointing the blade of her sheath directly at his neck. “What do you want from this? What were you hoping to achieve, by joining the White Fang?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he responded, trying to sound defiant and failing.

“This isn’t a trick question,” said Blake.

“It’s what we all want, isn’t it?” the leader snarled. “To watch all of the rotten humans burn and the places they use to oppress us destroyed—”

“Wrong answer,” Blake shouted at him. She swung the sheath and knocked his mask clean off his face. The rest of the White Fang grunts took a wary step back. “Are you braindead? I didn’t ask what your _leaders_ wanted. I asked what _you_ personally hoped to gain.”

“What does it matter to you?” the squad leader asked, looking down at Blake furiously.

“Because I’m not stupid,” said Blake. She reached up just long enough to tug the bow off her head, knowing that the grunts would all take notice of her ears. She was trembling and shaking from the anger and adrenaline, but she forced herself to keep talking. “Because I know what you guys really want. I wanted it, too. You joined the White Fang because you were tired of being treated like inferiors and just so desperately wanted to make a difference. You didn’t want to keep sitting on your ass so you got up and looked for a place you could fit in and work to become equals with the humans. Tell me I’m wrong.”

No one dignified that with a response. So Blake continued, her voice rising with every word she spoke.

“But somewhere along the way your leaders in the White Fang warped your perspective. They convinced you that your goal isn’t equal rights for the Faunus, but total annihilation for the humans. And now somehow the message has gotten even more twisted. Do you even know what you’re doing here? Did you not see the countless innocent Faunus slaving away back there, praying for a better future every single day of their lives?! You could have been the ones to give it to them! But look at where you are now. Just blindly following the people who tell you to blow up a Schnee Dust Company mine, and you believe them just because they tell you it’s the right thing to do. Using violence to get what you want is one thing, but since when did you start shamelessly murdering the innocent people you were _supposed to be fighting for in the first place_?”

She couldn’t tell if she was getting through to any of the grunts. A couple were still clearly defiant. Most of them just looked uncomfortable. Behind her, Weiss had managed to get into a sitting position, but her breathing was weak and erratic. Blake pointed at her.

“This is Weiss Schnee,” she said. “Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. Weiss knows that her father has been doing awful things behind the scenes. One of her main goals in life is to fix that. She knows what’s happening down in these mines is inhumane and sickening. Her father is not on your side, but she is. And you fucking morons just tried to kill her.”

Just then, they all heard an explosion in the distance. The ground shook from the impact. A couple pebbles dislodged from the ceiling. Blake whirled around, reaching up for her earpiece.

“Ruby?” she asked. “What was that? Are you okay?”

All she got back for a while was the sound of heavy breathing and rapid footsteps. None of the White Fang grunts moved, too stunned by the constant, rapid turn of events to do anything but stare. “This is not good,” Ruby finally managed to wheeze out. “One of the—one of the bombs just went off. Yang took most of the hit, she’s—I think she’s fine, she’s gonna wake up soon, but right now she’s out like a light. I’m trying to pull her to a safer place. The rest of the explosion blew a hole in the side of a tunnel. Blake—there’s Grimm coming. There’s a ton of Grimm coming into the mine right now. There’s too much negativity in this place, they’re out for blood.”

Blake froze, feeling the dread make her heart stop for a moment. “No. Tell me no.”

“We have to get moving,” Ruby said. She was gasping for breath. “The workers. We have to protect the workers.”

“There’s only four of us, what can we even do?”

“Blake,” said Ruby. She stopped responding after that.

“What the hell is going on?” the squad leader demanded. Blake spun around to look at him, deadly serious.

“One of the bombs you planted just detonated itself,” she told him, not even bothering to hide her rage. “Grimm are pouring in through the opening, and they’re being attracted by the negative mood in this miserable hellhole. This place is going to crumble in minutes and bring everyone down with it because of you and your stupid, foolish actions.”

The leader bristled, but without his mask on, Blake could see the panic written all over his expression. “It’s not a big deal. They have security robots for this very reason.”

“Yes,” said Blake. “The security robots. The ones you deactivated so you could sneak in here, right? Those security robots?”

“Oh,” said the leader.

“That’s what I thought.” Blake emptied her pistol and replaced the magazine with a refilled one. “Now I’m going to tell you what I’m about to do. I’m going to go down there with my team and protect these innocent Faunus workers from the mess you created. If you want to be decent people for once in your lives and _help_ , I won’t stop you. But if you try to get in our way, I will not hesitate to cut you down.”

She reached down and gathered Weiss up into her arms. Weiss’s gaze was unfocused, but she managed to stand up and stay on her feet. The White Fang grunts remained motionless. Blake threw them all one last dirty look before pulling Weiss’s arm around her shoulders and heading down the tunnel towards the main cave. The sounds of the Grimm snarling and the Faunus workers screaming in terror had already begun.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE RETURNED and i have brought with me some action and some more of that good gay shit LETS GO

The main cave was already a mess by the time they got there.

Faunus workers were scattering in all directions, trying to get as far away from the oncoming Grimm as they could. Off to the side, Ruby had set Yang down on the ground, where she remained there lying motionless on her back. Blake felt her heart stop at the sight, despite knowing that Yang was only unconscious for the time being. The front of her shirt was singed, and her face and arms were a bit dirty, but besides that, she seemed unharmed. Meanwhile Ruby herself was up ahead, single-handedly keeping the Grimm at bay. She was blazing a path back and forth from one end of the cave to the other, driving the Grimm back under the sheer force of her superspeed and the ruthless swinging and slashing of her scythe.

“Just put me down next to Yang,” Weiss mumbled to Blake. Her words sounded a bit slurred. “I’ll protect her or something.”

“Will you be okay?” Blake asked, alarmed.

Weiss shook her head, closing her eyes for a few seconds and grimacing. “I think I have a concussion. But I—I can still fight. Maybe.”

“Your Aura’s broken.”

“I still have my rapier.”

“Weiss—”

“Put me down and go help Ruby already,” said Weiss, trying to sound annoyed.

So Blake helped Weiss walk over to where Yang was and sit down by her side. Then she got up, turned around, and was surprised to find that a couple White Fang grunts had actually followed her into the cave. Blake counted maybe ten to fifteen of them, which meant that the vast majority had chosen to leave and save their own hides, but she honestly hadn’t expected any of them to take her up on her offer. 

“Well?” she said impatiently. “Don’t just stand there. Go round up all the workers and keep them safe at the back of the cave! You’re all on guard duty!”

The grunts were so startled by her commands that they scrambled to follow them without protest. Blake watched them as they started spreading out, reaching out to help the fallen workers to their feet and wave the rest of them towards the opposite side of the cave. Then she readied her katana and sheath and sprinted forward to meet the Grimm.

A pair of Creeps were converging on a worker who had tripped in the commotion. Without missing a beat, Blake chucked her pistol at the closer one, the ribbon wrapping around its body. Her Huntress training kicked in, months and months of practice letting her run on autopilot as she swung up into the air on the ribbon and came crashing back down with her sheath slicing directly through the second Creep. Then she yanked the blade free and turned, throwing it into the first one, both of them soon disintegrating into black mist afterwards. She pulled her ribbon back and extended a hand out towards the worker.

“Are you okay? Can you walk?” she asked him as she helped him back to his feet. He coughed for a few seconds, struggling to answer. But before he could, Blake heard something dart up behind her. She tried to dodge to the side, but the Grimm caught her in the shoulder. The worker cried out to her in surprise. Blake hit the ground and immediately began pushing herself back up, clenching her teeth in pain. “Go! Don’t worry about me. Get to the back of the cave!”

The worker scrambled away and Blake managed to flip over, coming face to face with several approaching Beowolves. Seconds later, the entire row of them exploded. Ruby was standing there with one arm outstretched, twirling her scythe in her other hand.

“Thanks,” said Blake, letting Ruby pull her to her feet again. “What do we do now?”

At first, Ruby didn’t let go of Blake’s hand. She frowned in concentration for a few seconds, squeezing her hand tight and drawing support from it. “Okay, so good news,” she finally said. “There’s only one opening and it’s not too crazy massive. Most of the bigger Grimm are still trying to break through it. We might be able to push back the onslaught and plug it up somehow. Emphasis on might.”

“I’ll take those odds.” Blake picked up her weapons again. Ruby nodded at her and readied her scythe. “Let’s do this.”

Together the two of them charged, working together wordlessly to team up and take the Grimm down, one by one. Blake tried to focus on getting rid of the ones who posed the greatest danger to the workers, but she didn’t always make it in time. Every single pained cry she heard made her tense up even more. The White Fang grunts helped where they could, pulling the workers out of the way and raining down a hail of bullets into any Grimm that got close.

After managing to clear out a small cluster of Grimm, Blake spared a glance over at Yang and Weiss. Yang was still unconscious, but Weiss had her scroll open in one hand, holding the other out with her palm face up. She looked more frustrated than anything. Evidently she was trying to summon a glyph, impatiently waiting for her Aura to regenerate so she could join the fight as soon as possible. Any time a Grimm tried to attack her or Yang, she’d pick up her rapier and run them through the chest with it before returning to her task.

Time seemed to blur together. Blake was barely aware of anything else except Ruby, who was by her side, and the Grimm surrounding them, trying to tear them apart. Her chest was burning from the exertion, but she couldn’t stop. Not when everyone else in the cave was depending on her. The fighting dragged on, and every single time she used her semblance, she could feel her Aura threatening to break under the stress. 

Then things started going wrong. A nearby cart tipped over in the commotion, spilling raw Dust chunks onto the ground. The Beowolf that Blake had been fighting backed up and stepped onto it. After a horrifying, tense moment, the Dust exploded. It wasn’t enough to blow another hole in the cave, but the force of it knocked Blake back into a wall. She felt her Aura finally give out and shatter upon impact.

“Blake!” Ruby cried. Somewhere behind them, Weiss was shouting her name too. Ruby tried to race over, but she was soon swamped by another wave of Grimm. Weirdly enough, it was a White Fang grunt who reached her first.

“Are you alright?” he said. The guy was shaking and clearly panicked out of his mind.

Blake groaned and pushed herself off from the wall. She checked her pistol. “I’m out of ammo,” she said. “Do you have any extra?”

The grunt shook his head. “We’re running low, too. What do we do?”

“Did you get all the workers to safety?” 

“Yeah, all the ones we could find.”

“Okay, that’s good.” Blake tried to blink through the dizziness. Her entire body felt heavy and sore. “Tell the others to move as much Dust as you can out of way. It’s too volatile to leave out in the open like this.”

“What about the Grimm?” the grunt asked.

Before Blake could answer, a King Taijitu slithered out of the tunnel and spotted them. The grunt screamed and darted away. Blake tried to. The giant snake snapped forward before she could fully roll away and managed to sink one of its fangs into her right forearm. She screamed too.

Then, on the other side of the cave, Yang suddenly jolted awake. She abruptly sat up, her eyes already blazing red. Without missing a beat, she managed to get to her feet and cover the distance of the cave in what seemed like just a few seconds. Her hair trailed fire in her wake. She jumped forward and threw all her weight into full-on body slamming the King Taijitu.

Blake felt the fang snap off and remain lodged in her arm. Yang and the snake both hit the wall, hard. She seemed to have the merciless beatdown covered, so Blake stumbled away, making a beeline towards where Weiss was located.

“That’s what you get, you piece of shit,” she heard Yang say to the snake as she yanked one of its heads back. “You touched one of my teammates and now you’re gonna pay.”

Weiss was standing there waiting for her when she arrived. Blake nearly collapsed into her arms. “It’s okay,” said Weiss, holding Blake up as best as she could. “It’s okay. Take a break. You’ve done more than enough for now.”

Blake coughed. Her legs were giving out. Weiss noticed and helped her to the ground. Then she frowned at the Taijitu’s fang still imbedded in her forearm.

“Ah,” Blake said distantly when she saw what Weiss was looking at. “I was wondering where the poison was coming from.”

“You’re ridiculous,” said Weiss. She got Blake propped up against the wall and then grabbed the base of the fang in her hand. “You might want to brace yourself.”

“For what?” asked Blake, because her mind was starting to fog up. Weiss jerked the fang out of her arm. If she’d had any energy left, she probably would have shouted. “Ow. That didn’t feel very good.”

“Don’t—don’t say that.” Weiss’s composure was starting to slip. She fussed over Blake, trying to keep her from tipping over and passing out. “Blake, no. Stay with me here. Blake!”

Blake tried to focus on the sound of Weiss’s voice. Her arm hurt. Somewhere near her Weiss was reaching for her rapier. She picked it up and held out her other hand. A small wisp of a glyph formed above her palm.

“My Aura’s starting to come back,” said Weiss. “Just hold still, Blake, let me clean this up, okay? Can you do that for me?”

“Okay,” said Blake.

Weiss took her arm and froze the wound in a chunk of ice. Then she melted it down with some fire Dust and started washing it out. While she worked, Blake’s gaze drifted over to Ruby and Yang. Both of them were valiantly facing off against the Grimm. Yang had tanked a bomb explosion to the face and was now using the full extent of that strength to literally smash any oncoming Grimm into pieces. Blake wondered how Ruby was still standing. She’d been driving the Grimm back for the longest out of all of them so far, and yet she was still tearing through them like a whirlwind, carving a massive path of death and destruction through the horde. Working together, the two of them seemed almost unstoppable, slowly but surely gaining ground against the Grimm and pushing them back towards the tunnel they were pouring out from.

“That’s the best I can do for now,” Weiss said, bringing Blake back to her present situation. “Do you have anything I can use as a bandage?”

“Um,” said Blake. She tried to clear her head. At least her arm had stopped feeling like it was on fire and was now more of an uncomfortable burning sensation. “I guess you can use one of my ribbons.”

So Weiss got working on that. After a while, her scroll, which had been lying open on the ground beside them, let out a dinging noise. They both looked at it, surprised. 

At first Blake couldn’t comprehend what was going on. Weiss realized it first. “Oh my god,” she said, almost disbelievingly. “The call went through.”

“It did?” said Blake.

“Yeah, I—I think so.” Weiss picked up the scroll, her hands shaking. The unmistakable green connection sign stared back at her. “Professor Ozpin?”

There was a crackling noise.

“Professor!” Weiss said into the scroll. “This is Team RWBY, we’re trapped in a Schnee Dust Company mine on the edge of the kingdom. We, uh, we can explain that part later! But right now it’s being overrun by Grimm, and we can’t handle all of them on our own, there’s too many. Please send help, I can give you our coordinates!”

All they got back was more static. Weiss stared helplessly at the scroll. A moment later, the call disconnected. 

“It’s okay,” Blake said, because Weiss looked like she was about to hurl her scroll across the cave. “Maybe he heard us. They can probably track the scroll’s signal location to this spot.”

“Ugh!” Weiss shot to her feet, and then clutched her head, wincing from the sudden movement. “I’m going to—I’m going to go fight now. You stay here and rest.”

“Wait. Weiss!” Blake called after her, but she had already loaded her rapier and dashed off to join the fray. All Blake could do was settle back against the wall, feebly clutching her weapon with her uninjured hand, and watch as her teammates fought for their lives.

 

* * *

 

Things didn’t really get better from there.

The King Taijitu’s poison wasn’t nearly strong enough to kill Blake while she sat there against the wall staring at her arm, but it was making her feel woozy, and made it take significantly longer for her Aura to repair itself. She could cut down a couple stray Grimm that got too close to her, but Yang, Weiss, and Ruby were up ahead doing all the heavy lifting, and it was starting to show.

The remaining White Fang grunts had begun leading the Faunus workers out of the mine and up to the surface again in small clusters. Blake watched them fearfully stumble their way out of the cave and through the back tunnels whenever there was an opening in all of the fighting going on. Some of the workers had to carry the other ones who were severely injured or motionless, which slowed the line down a lot. Blake had to look away, because the sight was making her feel sick. She turned her attention back to the Grimm.

On the bright side, at least, the cave seemed to be emptier than it had been earlier. They’d somehow managed to put a pretty significant dent in the Grimm’s numbers, slowly but surely gaining ground against them. Even then, it felt like a hollow achievement, because the Grimm were still coming out of the tunnel with no end in sight. At this point all they were doing was trying to put tape on a running faucet.

Yang and Ruby’s movements were getting sluggish. Their attacks became sloppier. Weiss had to keep stopping to brace herself against the wall for a couple seconds, her eyes squeezed shut in pain. Blake tried to get up and help for what felt like the tenth time that hour, but just like every previous attempt, she could only make it a couple feet before the numbness in her arm and the dizziness in her head forced her to stop. She could feel the dread starting to settle in her stomach.

After some time had passed Blake lifted her head to find Yang staggering up towards her. Her Aura was fizzling out, probably from overtaxing the use of her semblance.

“Hey,” Yang said as she approached, her chest heaving. Bruises were starting to form all over her face and arms. There was blood trickling out from the corner of her mouth. “You’re not too hurt, are you? You’re gonna be okay?”

“What?” was all Blake could say at first, staring in shock at Yang’s beat-up state. “I mean, yeah, I think I’ll be fine, but—”

“Okay, that’s good. I’m glad.” Yang grinned at her. 

Then she collapsed to her knees and passed out.

“No, no, wait! Yang. Yang!” Blake said in a panic, struggling to gather Yang up into her arms. She barely even have time to process Yang’s deteriorating condition before Ruby let out a strangled cry from across the cave. Blake looked up in horror and watched as Ruby misjudged a dodge and was punted through the air by an abnormally large Creep. She landed a couple of feet away from Yang and Blake, gasping for breath when the wind was knocked out of her.

The group of Creeps were converging on the three of them. Blake tried to get to her feet and failed. She raised her weapon hopelessly. The Creeps jumped. Blake squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for her impending doom.

“ _No_! Don’t you _dare_ touch them!” came Weiss’s desperate, furious yell. There was a loud clanging noise, followed by the sound of the Creeps screeching and dissolving into mist. When no immediate impalement followed, Blake cautiously opened her eyes.

Hovering above her was an enormous, intricate light blue glyph. A massive glowing metal arm protruded from it, wielding an even bigger broadsword. Weiss was standing a few feet away, her rapier held out in front of her, staring up at the arm in shock.

A second passed. Then two more. The Grimm had halted in their path, looking warily up at the glowing arm as well. Weiss yelled again. The arm lifted its broadsword, and with one massive swing, brought it down upon the Grimm and cracked an entire group of them in half.

Blake couldn’t help but watch on in awe as Weiss hurled herself back into fighting with a renewed intensity, the arm looming above her like her own personal guardian. She’d destroy five Grimm and the arm would strike down ten more in her wake. With the way the arm cast a faint blue glow onto her, and the fierce, protective expression she had on her face, she almost seemed like some sort of otherworldly savior. Despite the situation, Blake was entranced.

It took her a couple tries, but Ruby managed to hobble back to her feet and help Weiss continue to beat back the Grimm. Blake finally began to feel the beginnings of her Aura stitching itself back together again. She crawled over, ignoring the wave of dizziness that threatened to make her fall to the ground again with every step, determined to help Ruby and Weiss and get back into the fighting again.

Each inch of ground they gained took longer and more effort than the previous, but with their combined strength and the assistance of the giant arm, which at this point was acting as Weiss’s own one-hand army, they were actually able to wipe out most of the remainder of the Grimm in the main cave and force them to start bottling up in the tunnel.

“We just have to hold the line,” Ruby said, breathing heavily in between attacks. “Stall for time until everyone makes it out.”

Blake barely even heard her words, her muddled brain taking several seconds to process them before she could respond. “Okay,” she said. Then she got an idea. “I’m going to try something. You two cover me.”

Ruby looked confused, but she immediately shifted her stance to keep Blake out of the line of fire better. Blake turned around and caught sight of four White Fang grunts standing among the remaining Faunus workers in the cave. Either the rest of them had escaped up to the surface, or something bad had happened to them. Blake hoped it was the former, and waved them over.

Together they used Blake’s ribbons and a bunch of empty metal carts and stacked them up as best they could against the tunnel, creating a makeshift barrier of sorts. It did nothing to completely stop the Grimm, but at least it slowed the flow down and made it just a bit more manageable. The glowing arm eventually phased out of existence, leaving Weiss completely exhausted. She was gripping the back of her head and groaning, her concussion clearly not doing her any favors.

Time continued to pass. They settled into a routine of sorts. Blake, Weiss and Ruby switched off fighting in pairs, leaving the last person to get a short break while they watched over Yang, who didn’t wake up again for the remainder of the fight’s duration. 

Blake felt like her insides were being repeatedly microwaved. She didn’t know how long they’d been down in the caves by now, but her Aura broke and regenerated itself two more times after the first, and she knew for a fact that it took at least an hour, sometimes even two, for that to happen. Each time it seemed to hurt more and more. During the second period of downtime she’d had the fortune of getting to learn what an Ursa’s punch to the face felt like without the protective barrier. Her nose was spurting blood now. It must have looked awful.

There’d been spots floating around at the edges of her vision for quite a while, but now she had to actively fight to remain conscious. Every swing of her weapon made her feel like she was on the edge of blacking out. She forced herself to keep going, fueled by her desire to make sure as many of the Faunus workers could make it out of the mine alive. And by how badly she wanted to make it out of this alive too, with her team. With the four of them, together.

It was a while after that before her brain began to register a sound that didn’t have anything to do with Grimm either knocking against her or the metal cart barrier. At first it was hard to make out, but Blake almost thought it sounded like machinery whirring in the distance.

“How long has it been?” she asked from where she was sitting on the ground next to Yang. Ruby was locked in a grapple with a Beowolf, so Weiss was the one who eventually answered.

“Long enough,” she managed to get out.

Blake listened to the sound for another moment. It was definitely getting louder. “Long enough for help to get here?” she said.

Weiss’s eyes widened. She finished slashing a Grimm’s head clean off its body before turning back to Blake. “There’s no way…” she said, but Blake could see the hope written all over her expression. “Do you—do you really think they got our call?”

They didn’t have to wait long for the answer. 

After a few minutes, the first wave of security robots arrived.

Rapid-fire gunshots began ringing through the air. It was almost a welcome sound, since they’d run out of bullets themselves for a good while now. Slowly but surely, more and more robots began pouring out into the cave, even followed by a few squads of human soldiers. Their uniforms were all emblazoned with the Atlas military logo, and their guns were pointed directly at the Grimm in the tunnel.

Someone walked up to Blake, who was sitting there blinking rapidly in a desperate attempt to stay grounded in the present. She looked up.

“You’ve done extremely well here,” said Ironwood. “Ozpin and I got your distress call and brought help as fast as we could. My men can take it from here. There’s an airship outside waiting to take you and your team back to Beacon.”

“Thank you,” Blake managed to say. Her ears were ringing. Her arm throbbed and her body was giving out.

“Can you walk?”

“Probably not.”

Blake hadn’t meant to say it so bluntly, but before she could apologize or correct herself, she finally fell backwards and blacked out.

 

* * *

 

When she came to again, the first thing she noticed was that she was lying on a cot, surrounded by blankets and pillows. Her forearm was properly bandaged. She still felt incredibly tired and heavy, but most of the pain had reduced to a dull ache.

She blinked open her eyes and found herself in Beacon’s infirmary. Yang was still unconscious on the cot next to hers. Ruby was fast asleep sitting in between them, with her face pressed into Yang’s stomach. Weiss sat next to her, fighting to stay awake. 

The cots seemed like they were placed unnaturally close together. Blake wondered if Ruby had intentionally dragged them closer so she could be at both Blake and Yang’s bedside at the same time. The thought made her smile. Weiss noticed.

“You’re awake,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” said Blake. She reached out and held up her hand. Weiss smiled and took it. “What… how long have I been out?”

“A little more than three days, I think?” Weiss answered. “General Ironwood picked us up very early morning on Thursday. I was told that it’s Sunday afternoon right now.”

Blake groaned. Then the realization hit her. “The mine. The Faunus workers. What happened to them?”

“I’m not sure,” Weiss said with a small frown. “I lost consciousness a little bit after we got onto the airship. I was only just discharged from the infirmary a couple hours ago. Ruby might know more about the situation, though.”

At the sound of her name Ruby stirred. She glanced up at Weiss curiously, then twisted around to look at Blake, and immediately jolted the rest of the way awake when she realized that Blake was conscious.

“Blake!” she said, shifting her plastic chair around so that she was facing her. “Hi. How are you feeling?”

“Pretty gross,” said Blake. She made a face. Ruby laughed a little and leaned forward to rest her hand on Blake’s arm. “How are you so full of energy? You took a real heavy beating back there.”

“I mean, I was lucky I didn’t really sustain any severe injuries,” said Ruby. “All I needed was a couple long, fat naps and I was pretty much good to go.” Her expression filled with concern. “You guys were in really bad shape by the time we made it out of there, though. I was so scared.”

“Ha. Sorry about that.” Blake took Ruby’s hand with the one she wasn’t using to hold Weiss’s and brought it up so she could press a gentle kiss to it. “But you’re not getting rid of us that easily.”

“I’m glad,” said Ruby, her voice filled with relief and affection.

Even though she still kind of felt like shit about everything, Blake was grateful that she had the rest of her team with her. They still seemed to possess that remarkable ability to automatically make any situation better just by existing nearby.

“Ruby,” said Blake.

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what happened at the mine after we left?”

“No, not the specifics,” said Ruby, frowning. “But it’s a really good thing that General Ironwood’s here providing security for the Vytal Festival Tournament. He sent an entire one of his ships to come and help us. I’m pretty sure they’ve secured the whole place for now. I dunno much about the workers themselves, but I think most of them made it to the surface. Also, Professor Ozpin wants to have a meeting with us as soon as we’re all awake again, so… maybe he can fill us in on the details.” She winced. So did Blake.

“We’re totally going to get yelled at, aren’t we?” she said.

“Probably,” said Ruby. “We’re so dead.”

“Better that than actually being dead,” said Weiss. 

That just sobered them up even more. Blake let out a sigh. “I hate this,” she said, staring up at the ceiling. “It just… everything was so happy and peaceful for once. It felt like nothing could get us down. And then life kind of just barged in and was like, surprise! Don’t forget that the world actually sucks.”

For a while none of them spoke. Weiss squeezed her hand gently, her gaze unfocused and a little brooding.

Then Ruby let her head flop onto Blake’s stomach. “I don’t think it was ever really possible to stay in a peaceful little bubble forever,” she said slowly, turning her face to the side to look at Blake. “It’s relatively safe here at Beacon, but there’s always going to be awful things going on in the world around us. But we shouldn’t let that stop us from finding happiness where we can.” She offered Blake a small, hopeful smile. 

And there was nothing Blake could do but crumble in the face of Ruby’s earnest optimism.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, okay.”

They stayed like that for a bit longer. Blake only became aware of the passing of time again when Yang began to stir. They all noticed at the same time.

“Yang?” Ruby asked tentatively, detaching herself from Blake’s side so she could face her sister again.

Yang let out a long groan and mumbled something incoherent. “I feel like shit,” she said.

She forced open her eyes just in time to get tackled by Ruby’s hug.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Ruby said into her shirt, while Yang grinned sheepishly and reached up to pat the back of Ruby’s head.

“Me too, sis. Me too.” She tried to lift her head, but gave up halfway through. Her expression turned into one of concern. “Are we all… did we all make it?”

“Yeah,” said Weiss.

Yang seemed to relax upon hearing that. “Weiss,” she said, her voice filled with warmth. “You’re okay. And Blake…?”

“I’m over here,” said Blake.

“Okay.” Yang sighed in relief and eased back into her pillows. “That’s good, then. Yeah. That’s good.”

The four of them fell into a peaceful silence. Blake took the time to appreciate the fact that they were all still alive and together.

“Yang, can I ask you something?” she said eventually.

“What is it?”

“I just want to make sure I’m getting my facts right,” said Blake. “Because as far as I can tell, your immediate reaction to watching a bomb explode in front of you was to try and contain it with your face.”

It took Yang a second to understand what Blake was talking about. Then she laughed a little. “Hey, I mean it worked, didn’t it? That thing was powerful enough to wreck that entire part of the tunnel system. If I hadn’t jumped on it we would have ended up with something a lot larger than a single hole.”

“I know,” said Blake. “But you’re still incredibly stupid. And impulsive. And so, so selfless.” She had to stop talking for a second, clenching and unclenching her fist in an attempt to relieve some of her stress. “When will you take care of yourself first for once?”

“I—I can’t,” said Yang, so quietly that Blake almost didn’t hear her. “I care about you guys too much. You three are always going to come first in my heart.”

“Stupid,” Weiss told her, echoing Blake’s words as she threw herself forward to hug Yang as well. Blake wished she wasn’t confined to her own cot so she could join them. “You’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

“Sorry,” said Yang.

Blake shifted a little underneath the covers and settled in, listening to what sounded like Weiss trying her best not to start crying all over Yang, and Ruby trying to comfort her in response. She couldn’t help but smile.

They were going to be okay.

 

* * *

 

In the evening Blake was released from the infirmary a couple hours before Yang, which ended up making absolutely no difference seeing as the entire team refused to leave her bedside afterwards anyway. They left together after the nurse gave them all strict orders to get as much rest as possible and avoid too much physical strain for the next week or so.

After that Ozpin notified them that they had one hour to get food before he wanted to see them in his office. The walk down the hallway to the mess hall wasn’t just nerve wracking for that reason, though. For some reason, everyone was staring at them.

“Do people somehow already know what happened or something?” Blake asked warily.

They all glanced at Ruby. She blinked. “Hey, don’t do that,” she protested. “I barely know anything either. I spent the entire past three days in the infirmary with you guys too, you know.”

“Why?” said Yang, confused.

Ruby just gave her a weird look. “What was I supposed to do, pretend to go back to school life by myself as if everything was fine and sleep alone in the dorm room while my teammates were all knocked out two floors below me?”

“Okay, good point,” said Yang.

Dinner didn’t go by much better. People kept staring at them. It was kind of unnerving, especially since every time Blake caught someone in the act, they’d immediately look away, almost as if they felt bad for doing it. Someone had to have found out and spread the word. The way everyone was looking at them, it seemed like they couldn't decide whether or not to pity them.

But later, once they’d all eaten what they could and soon found themselves sitting together on one side of the desk with Ozpin contemplating them from the other, Blake almost wished she was back in the hallways with everyone staring at her again. Somehow, this was even worse. The entire room was dead silent. Blake instinctively took Yang’s hand for comfort, and after a moment, Yang intertwined their fingers together.

Finally Ozpin let out a sigh and spoke. “I’m not going to yell at any of you, if that’s what you’re all so worried about.”

“What?” Ruby said, as the spokesperson for the team, being the leader and all. 

“I imagine you’ve learned your lesson by now,” said Ozpin. “If you think I’m going to further compound your guilt by scolding you for your reckless actions, you can rest assured that I wasn’t planning on doing so.” He fiddled with the handle of his coffee mug for a few seconds, trying to gather his thoughts together. “That being said, I do ask that the next time something big like this comes up, _please_ let me know, or at least notify one of the other qualified Huntsmen that work at this academy. We’re here to help you grow as students, but we can’t do that if you’re dead.”

Blake nearly shrank back in her seat at his words. Ozpin really wasn’t pulling any punches tonight, but she knew that he was right.

“We’re sorry,” said Ruby.

“Good,” said Ozpin. “Now, here’s the thing. Somebody, likely one of Ironwood’s soldiers, managed to record some video footage of the situation in the interior of the mines, which has been leaked to the public. And, well, it’s gained quite a bit of traction. There has been a pretty significant outcry against the working conditions in the mine. And obviously everyone wants to know what exactly happened there. Right now the story that I’ve shared with the news is that the White Fang were spotted at the Schnee Dust Company mine, preparing to attack when an accident happened and the mine was overrun with Grimm. A group of students from my school had been accompanying their teacher on a mission in the vicinity and were able to repel both the White Fang and the Grimm until further help arrived.”

Ozpin glanced at all of them, one by one. No one said anything. When he seemed satisfied that they all understood his words, he continued.

“I believe most of your fellow students have already figured out who this mystery team is. After all, it’s not every day a team returns to Beacon in a small Atlas military transport ship covered in dirt and blood, with three of the four members unconscious. It likely wasn’t very hard to put the pieces together after the video was leaked. But the rest of the public do not know of your identities. I thought I should leave the decision up to you. So now I ask you this: Would you rather remain anonymous, or would you like to lay claim to your actions and tell the world that it was Team RWBY who had been at the mine that day?”

The room fell into silence again. Blake glanced at her teammates. Yang and Ruby seemed mostly confused and maybe just a little apprehensive. Weiss, on the other hand, had completely tensed up, her eyes closed and her expression tight. Blake automatically put a hand on her back, and felt Ruby do the same soon after. 

They all knew why Weiss was so nervous about this decision. If they chose to reveal themselves as the ones who had interfered with the inner workings of the mine, word would definitely get back to the owner of the mine, and subsequently the owner of the Schnee Dust Company as well. In all honesty Blake could understand it pretty well, too. She knew a couple very special people in the White Fang who would not be happy at all if they found out she was one of the students who gotten in their way and foiled their plans. Just the thought of it was enough to make her feel uneasy.

“We don’t have to reveal ourselves if you guys don’t want to,” Yang said. “Both of you. Ruby and I are fine either way.”

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed, rubbing in circles against Weiss’s back. “Please don’t feel pressured because of us or anything.”

“No,” said Weiss. She took a deep breath, her eyes still squeezed shut. “I—we should do this. I want to do this. Right?”

“Are you sure?” Ruby asked with a worried frown.

“I don’t know,” Weiss admitted. She looked up at Ozpin. “Are we allowed to have more time to think on it?”

Ozpin regarded her curiously for a few moments. “Certainly,” he said. “Though try not to take too much time. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep giving vague answers to the media before they come snooping in themselves.”

“Okay,” Weiss said uneasily.

“Alright then. If that’s all on that matter, I have one last thing I wish to discuss with you,” Ozpin continued, “and that is the Vytal Festival Tournament.”

“Oh, right, that thing,” said Yang. “The first-year quarterfinals is tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Ozpin. “If necessary, I can pull some strings and see if I can get your match moved a day or two later. But I need you all to be aware this is something I can only do for you once. Of course, there’s always the option of taking a break and dropping out of the rest of the tournament altogether.”

“No way,” said Yang, turning to look at the rest of her team. “We’re still in, right guys?”

“Duh,” said Ruby. She flashed them all a grin. Weiss nodded, still looking a bit distracted. Ozpin glanced at Blake, who just shrugged, content to go along with their collective decision.

“Very well, then,” said Ozpin. “That's all I had to discuss. Do you have any final questions for me?”

“Um, actually,” said Blake. “Professor… do you know what happened to all the workers who were at the mine that day?”

Ozpin sighed and pushed his glasses up a bit before answering. “Yes. I’m afraid I don’t have the exact numbers for you, but I can assure you that a majority of the workers survived the incident and are currently taking shelter in a safe zone while the mine is being repaired.”

Even though that was supposed to be good news, Blake still felt her heart sink. “People still died, then.”

“Yes, people did,” Ozpin agreed. “And many more are severely injured.” He paused for a second. “The four of you still performed extremely well though, you know. Even without outside help, you managed to hold off a wave of Grimm all on your own. It’s true that some of the workers have lost their lives, but if you hadn’t been there, many, many more would have died as well. So take some comfort in knowing that.”

Blake closed her eyes. She felt Weiss wrap an arm around her waist. When no one else said anything, Ozpin scooted back in his chair, getting ready to stand up again.

“It’s getting late,” he told them. “You’ve all had a long week. Go get some rest now, I will be sure to update you if any important news comes up again. And please, be careful.”

And with that, he dismissed them from his office.

The walk back to their dorm was pretty silent. The staring didn’t stop, either. Blake wondered when the novelty of the situation would finally wear off.

Team JNPR must have heard them approaching, because when they reached their room, Pyrrha opened the door across from them and poked her head out, looking concerned.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, Pyrrha,” Ruby responded. She sounded exhausted. “What’s up?”

“I mean, it’s just more of the usual, I think,” said Pyrrha. “We… we heard about what happened. Are you guys okay?”

Ruby looked up at Blake. Then she turned her head to look at Yang and Weiss too. “Yeah. I think we will be.”

“That’s good.” Pyrrha shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I guess I’ll get out of your hair now. If you ever need anything, we’re all here for you.”

“Thanks, Pyrrha,” said Ruby.

They headed inside their room. Almost immediately after the door closed behind them Weiss made a beeline towards the bookshelf underneath the window. She put her hands underneath the top shelf, trying to get a solid grip on the left corner of it. “Yang, can you help me with this?”

Yang blinked. “Wait, what for?” she asked.

Weiss lifted up the end of the bookshelf and started dragging it towards the front of the room. Yang finally registered what Weiss was trying to do and walked up to her, easily hefting the entire shelf over her shoulder, with all the books and stuff still on it and everything. It took Weiss a couple seconds to stop staring. “Right,” she said, a little sheepishly. “Can you just move it out of the way of the beds for a second?”

Yang still looked confused, but she complied. With the path now clear, Weiss went over to the far side of her bed and started pushing it towards Blake and Yang’s bunk. Blake herself was still standing there stupidly in the doorway with Ruby by her side.

“What,” was all Blake could say.

Weiss let out a huff. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, turning her head away to try and hide her embarrassment. “I just—it’s just been a very long and grueling past couple of days. And I just want to sleep now and be with you guys tonight and hold you all close to me. That’s all.” She got her bed lined right up against Blake’s and then proceeded to flop down right onto it. The look she gave Blake made her crack instantly.

“Of course,” Blake said. “Anything… anything for you.”

Yang set the bookshelf down in the corner of the room while the rest of them smoothed over the gap in the beds with a couple of blankets. Then Blake settled onto the bed, with Ruby snuggled up to her back and Weiss’s face inches away from her own, their legs all tangled together. Yang joined them soon after turning off the lights in the dorm, wrapping her arm around Weiss’s stomach and pulling her in tight.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Ruby said softly into the darkness.

And as Blake began to drift off to sleep, wrapped up close with all her teammates, she knew that Ruby was right.

They were going to be okay.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS HOLY SHIT spicybon was kind and awesome enough to draw a cover pic for this fic?? i'm losing my god damn mind please go check out their stuff on tumblr too it's all amazing

Life continued on.

Yang spent a majority of the next day sleeping. She suspected the others did the same, or at least took several naps throughout the day, because she kept waking up alternating between finding either Weiss or Blake fast asleep in her arms. No one tried to rouse her or shove her off the bed, so she assumed that Ozpin had successfully moved their tournament match to a later date and that nothing else super important was going on.

It was dark out by the time she finally decided to get up for real. Most of it was because of the hunger. She pushed herself into a sitting position and scanned the room. Ruby was playing video games on her scroll in her bed, which was now just dangling on its own from the ceiling with nothing underneath it. Weiss was sitting at her desk, staring down at something she was holding in her hands.

“Where’s Blake?” Yang asked.

“Good morning to you, too,” said Ruby.

Yang squinted at her. She was so disoriented it took her a couple moments to realize that it wasn’t actually morning. “I want food,” she settled for saying instead.

Ruby picked up what looked like a half-eaten bag of chips next to her and folded the top over. Then she chucked it at Yang. It hit her in the face. “Blake is coming back with more,” Ruby told her.

“More chips?” said Yang, even as she opened the bag up and popped a couple in her mouth.

“Yes,” said Ruby, as seriously as she could manage. “That’s what you get for sleeping through the entire day.”

“Hey, I didn’t sleep through the _entire_ day, did I?” said Yang. She stretched for a couple of seconds before blearily moving to get up off the bed. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten.”

“Oh, gross.” Yang stood up, almost fell over from the sheer fatigue, and then sat back down again. “I changed my mind. I’m going back to sleep.” 

“You’re a big baby,” said Ruby.

“Then you’re a tiny baby,” Yang retorted. “Like, ant-size tiny. I could squish you between my fingers.” She held up her hand for scale. Then she glanced over at Weiss, who hadn’t budged an inch throughout their little conversation. “Hey Weiss? You good?”

Weiss jumped. She turned to meet Yang’s gaze, tossing the closed scroll she’d been fiddling with onto her desk. “Yeah,” she said, but she sounded uncertain. “Maybe. I’m just thinking about some things.”

Before Yang could respond to that, the door opened. Blake walked in carrying a flat cardboard box in her hands. “I stole a pizza from the kitchen,” she announced, walking forwards and plunking the box onto the bed. She offered Yang a small smile. “Good morning, by the way.”

“Ruby just said the exact same thing to me earlier,” Yang said indignantly. 

Blake looked up at Ruby, who grinned and gave her a thumbs up. Then Blake moved over and sat down next to Yang. “Great minds think alike, right?” she said, still smiling. Her expression softened. “How are you feeling?”

“What? How am _I_ feeling?” said Yang, glancing pointedly at Blake’s bandaged arm. “How are _you_ feeling?”

“I asked first,” said Blake.

“Ass,” said Yang.

Blake just raised an eyebrow. “I’m allowed to be concerned for your wellbeing too, you know,” she said.

Yang held her gaze for a second longer and then let out a small sigh, staring down at the carpet and scuffing at it with her foot. “I dunno,” she said. “I feel kind of… weird.” The word she was looking for was weak. She felt weak. Everyone else had already long since gotten up and started acting like functioning humans again, and yet she’d spent the whole day holed up in the room sleeping. But she didn’t really feel like burdening the others with that information. “Sorry, it’s probably because I just woke up.” She got up from her bed, trying to escape some of the tension, and headed over to where Weiss was sitting. Weiss watched her approach and inch her way around to the back of her seat. It was probably a testament to how distracted Weiss was that she barely even reacted when Yang reached down underneath her arms and gently pulled her up out of the chair.

“Where are we going?” Weiss said distantly.

“Over here.” Yang lifted Weiss into the air and brought her over to the bed, setting her down next to Blake. Then Yang sat down on her other side. “We should be asking you how you’re feeling. Come on, talk to us. What’s on your mind?”

Weiss looked at her hands for a few moments. Blake was regarding Yang suspiciously, evidently not fooled by her attempts to take the attention off of herself. Yang silently begged her to drop the subject for now. So she relented and they moved to hold Weiss in between them while Ruby closed her scroll and hopped down from her bed to join them.

“I think I’m going to say it was me. That it was us,” Weiss finally said as Ruby settled down by her feet. “If that’s okay with you guys, obviously.”

“About the mine?” Yang asked her.

“Yeah,” said Weiss. “Have you guys seen the news? People are _pissed_. I guess most people just didn’t realize how awful the conditions in the mines are, and the leaked video opened a lot of their eyes. There’s going to be pressure on the company now to change their methods. Whether or not that will end up making a difference in the long run has yet to be seen, though.” She sounded bitter.

For a while no one said anything. Ruby leaned forward and bumped her head against Weiss’s knee. “You know we’ll support whatever decision you make,” she said.

“I keep thinking about how much more influence I have over this whole thing than most people,” said Weiss. “How if I threw my weight behind the backlash it would make it nearly impossible to ignore. Not only am I literally next in line to inherit the Schnee Dust Company, but I was there at the mine when all of this happened. I saw everything firsthand with you guys. Like, my father, he—he’d _have_ to acknowledge all the protestors if I was standing there right along with the rest of them.”

Yang couldn’t tell if Weiss realized she was absently reaching for her and Blake’s hands, searching for any source of support and comfort. They gave it to her, of course, and Yang squeezed her hand tight. “You’re not alone in this fight,” she reminded Weiss gently. “We’ve got your back every step of the way. And if that little bastard tries to do anything to you, I’ll catapult him off a cliff.”

She was glad to see that Weiss managed to smile at that, at least. “I’ll… be sure to keep that in mind,” she said. “But that’s just me. I won’t ask to do anything unless we all agree on it.” Weiss glanced up at Blake, frowning slightly. “I know you have your own personal reasons for wanting to keep a low profile. If you’d rather remain anonymous, I completely understand.”

“It’s fine,” Blake said, a little quickly. When the rest of them turned to look at her funny, she hastened to explain herself better. “Sorry. Yeah, I mean it’s a little scary. But if Weiss is brave enough to stand up for what she believes in, then… I think I can do it too.” 

Ruby was looking back and forth between the two of them. Then she sighed. “Are you guys absolutely sure about this?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Weiss. After a few seconds, Blake nodded her agreement.

“Okay,” said Ruby, giving them all a small smile as she stood up from her spot on the floor. “I just wanted to make sure. I’ll go and tell Ozpin about our decision, then.”

“Do you want some pizza before you go?” Blake asked her, picking up the box and plopping it onto Yang’s lap. Yang opened it up and took out a slice, watching as Ruby considered the offer for a few moments.

“Nah, I’m not that hungry,” she said eventually. “I already ate dinner earlier cause I’m not a loser like Yang.”

“Shut up,” said Yang.

Ruby squinted at her. Yang had to look away and tried to busy herself with eating her pizza, but she knew Ruby was on to her. 

“It’s okay. You guys enjoy the pizza without me,” Ruby said to them. She kept looking at Yang. “But I got my eyes on you.”

She stuck her tongue out at Yang and then left the room.

 

* * *

 

As the week went on, things gradually seemed to go back to normal.

The revelation that they were the students who had been at the mine came out the next day. Yang kept waiting for something to blow up, for there to suddenly be people clamoring to break down their door and bother them, but it never happened. Not yet, at least. Weiss and Blake especially were acting like their entire lives were about to get turned upside down at any given moment. If anything, the fact that nothing much seemed to change at all so far was a little unnerving. 

Their quarterfinals tournament match against Team NDGO took place on Wednesday. It wasn’t nearly enough time for them to fully recover and return back to top fighting shape, but they still went out and tried their best. Somehow they managed to pull through and win, but it hadn’t been easy. Weiss’s concussion started acting up again halfway through the battle, and she ended up being the first on their team to get knocked out of the match. Yang followed suit not long after. Blake was moments away from joining them before she and Ruby teamed up to pull off a last second stunt that took out the final member of Team NDGO. They’d emerged victorious once again.

“That was a good match,” the team leader, Nebula, had said to them afterwards. “I don’t think it would have been a fair fight even without the handicap. You guys deserve the win.”

And now Yang was sitting alone in the library of all places, using one of the public computers to absently scroll through the news. It was interesting, seeing her name plastered all over articles and websites alongside Blake, Weiss, and Ruby’s. They’d already gotten a little famous after the whole Torchwick incident at Mountain Glenn, so a lot of the news reporters seemed largely unsurprised that it was them who had once again charged headlong into this absolute mess of a situation. A lot of the reporters were also commenting on how interesting it was that Weiss had been at the mine as well, and speculating whether or not she had been aware of how her father’s company treated its workers.

Yang wondered how she was holding up. She decided that maybe it was time to stop moping around and go and check up on Weiss and the others back at the dorm, so she shut off the computer and got back to her feet.

The second she entered the room Ruby was right there waiting for her.

“My wonderful but kind of dumb sister Yang!” she declared, pointing at Yang from where she was standing in the middle of the room, next to their little combined bed setup. They’d been too lazy to move everything back after that first night. “I have thought long and hard about this matter, and I have decided that it is time for an intervention!”

Yang raised an eyebrow at her. She glanced around the room. Weiss and Blake were both sitting atop Yang’s bunk, poring over something on Weiss’s scroll together. Blake had an arm around Weiss’s shoulder. At least they both seemed okay.

“What’s going on?” Yang asked Ruby.

“An intervention,” Ruby said again. “Come over here.”

So Yang walked up to her slowly, feeling a little apprehensive. Ruby moved her around until she had her back to the bed. Before Yang could ask her just what she was planning on doing, Ruby had come up directly behind her, wrapped her arms firmly around Yang’s stomach, and then, with a colossal effort, literally lifted her into the air and suplexed her onto the bed.

“Holy _shit_ , Ruby, okay, jeez,” said Yang as she hit the mattress, trying to get over the initial shock, while Ruby wriggled her way out back up into a standing position.

“That,” she said, “was for being stupid.”

“What did I do this time?” said Yang, groaning. She brought her hand up to her face, rubbing at it tiredly.

“You know what you did,” said Ruby. “And we’re gonna sit here and talk about it. Provided you don’t try to dodge the subject again.”

“What if I don’t want to talk about it?” Yang asked defensively.

Ruby thought about that for a few moments. “I’ll pout at you until you do,” she decided.

“Please don’t,” said Yang.

“Drastic times calls for drastic measures,” Ruby told her brightly. She glanced up at Weiss and Blake and nodded at them.

Yang watched as Blake detached herself from Weiss’s side and hopped down from the bunk bed. “It’s not that drastic,” she tried to say to Ruby. “Really, sis, it’s not that big of a deal. I swear.”

“It kind of is if you’ve been all moody and stuff for days now,” said Ruby, crossing her arms and frowning. Blake had walked over and joined them by now. “So I’m not budging until you tell us what’s bothering you.”

Yang looked away. Blake reached forward and took her by the wrists, gently tugging her up into a sitting position. Then she got onto the bed as well and settled down into her lap. “Come on,” Blake said, leaning forward and pulling Yang into a hug. “We just want to make sure you’re okay. Please.”

And just like that, Yang felt the tension inside of her break. She let her head flop forward against Blake’s shoulder, burying her face into her shirt. Somewhere above them, Weiss was climbing down from the bunk as well.

“This isn’t the way things are supposed to work,” said Yang.

“Yeah?” said Blake. “How are they supposed to work, then?”

“Um,” said Yang. “You three all do your own thing. And then I’m the one who takes care of you while you do that.”

Behind her, Yang heard Weiss let out a snort. A moment later she had pressed herself up against Yang’s back, wrapping her arms around Yang’s stomach. “That seems a little unfair and unbalanced, don’t you think?” she said.

“It’s what I’m good at,” Yang insisted. “Or, at least, it’s what I’m supposed to be good at. But how am I supposed to protect all of you if I keep losing all of these fights and repeatedly getting myself almost killed?” 

Once she’d started, she found that she couldn’t stop talking. Ruby and Weiss and Blake were all watching her and listening intently, and it almost felt embarrassing to be at the center of attention for once. But the words kept spilling out in a rush.

“You guys all have so much going for you. I’m just here because I like fighting. Which, like I said before, it’s fine. I’m cool with it, I’m happy with just being around to help you guys punch shit. Except I’m so weak I can’t even do that properly. Both times we’ve gotten into serious situations where it actually mattered, I failed you. Our lives were on the line and _I_ was always the one who came super close to dying. So if I’m not even capable of beating a couple Grimm or some short tiny girl who fights with a fucking umbrella to help protect you all without coming within an inch of death, then what good am I for?”

Yang tightened her grip on the back of Blake’s shirt, bunching up the fabric in her fists. If Blake noticed she didn’t show it. “Yang…” she said, concern written all over her expression.

“Ah, what the hell am I saying,” said Yang. She forced out a weak laugh. “You and Weiss are actually dealing with real, serious problems. You’ve got the whole White Fang thing on top of all the Faunus stuff to worry about, and Weiss has her father and his company, and I’m over here feeling sorry for myself about something so stupid. Just—just forget I said anything.”

The room fell silent. Yang kept clinging onto Blake, who hugged her back. Ruby had gotten onto the bed by now, sitting cross-legged next to Blake.

“Yang,” Weiss said eventually, her tone firm enough that it made Yang nervous.

“Yeah?” she said hesitantly.

“When was the last time you really opened up to us about how you were feeling? Like, genuinely opened up. Confided in us about something that was bothering you.”

“I—I um.”

“That’s what I thought.” Weiss poked her in the stomach. Yang jumped a little. “You’re so stupid. We’re not going to judge you for having problems.”

“Didn’t you just call me stupid?”

Weiss let out a huff. “Not because you have problems. You’re stupid because you think that just because the rest of us have stuff we’re dealing with too makes yours somehow less important or something.”

“I…” said Yang, at a loss for words.

“You probably think we haven’t noticed,” said Blake, pulling back so she could gently brush aside a bit of Yang’s hair, “but we’ve been living in the same space together for a pretty long time now, so it’s kind of hard not to. You’ve always been the strongest out of all of us, looking out for everyone and taking care of us when we’re down. But you don’t have to bottle up your own emotions and hide them from us to do that.”

Yang didn’t even know what to say to that. She almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Next to Blake, Ruby shifted a little before finally speaking up.

“Yang,” she began slowly, like she was considering her next words carefully, “you know that you’re the world’s greatest big sister, right? Like ever since we were little, the one thing I always remembered is that you were there for me no matter what. I know you always set aside your own troubles so that you could make sure I was happy, and for that I’ll forever be grateful. Just… just let me return the favor too, okay? Because I wanna see you happy too. We all do.”

“Shit, guys,” said Yang. She was almost trembling a little, feeling the warmth slowly rising in her chest. “Just. I don’t—wow. This is new.”

“Guess you’re going to have to get used to it, huh?” Blake told her with a calm smile, and Yang definitely got super distracted just staring at her. “We’re not going to give up on you anytime soon.”

“And don’t you dare call yourself weak or say you’re no good ever again,” Weiss added. “Because that’s just blatantly false. You can’t expect me to watch you casually absorb the impact of a very powerful bomb and not only survive the explosion, but get up later to help fight off a massive wave of Grimm, and then believe that you somehow failed us? That’s ridiculous.”

“I didn’t just casually tank the hit,” said Yang, even though she knew she was nitpicking at this point, and that the others wouldn’t buy it for a second. The way Blake was looking at her was making her heart go crazy. “It knocked me out cold. And then afterwards I passed out again, longer than anyone else.”

“Oh, look at me,” said Weiss. “My name is Yang Xiao Long. I’m the only reason why that entire mine didn’t just cave in on itself and crush everyone inside it. A bomb that was meant to level entire layers of solid rock didn’t even come close to breaking my Aura, but I’m apparently weak because I fell unconscious as a result of jumping on top of it.” She sighed and squeezed Yang a little tighter. “That’s what you sound like, you know.”

“Well, if you’re gonna put it like that,” Yang said awkwardly.

“You fought that short ice cream lady on the train, right?” said Ruby. “That’s just being unfair to yourself. Just cause you lost to her doesn’t mean you’re weak, it just means she’s insanely strong. I mean, you remember how easily she helped Torchwick escape that one time he chased us with the giant robot. She’s on a whole different level than all of us, not just you in particular.”

“Plus, I lost my fight too,” said Weiss. “Blake’s the only one who won her matchup.”

“Which was largely due to luck and surprise,” Blake put in.

“See?” said Ruby, looking back to Yang expectantly. “You’re super strong and awesome. And I’ll smack anyone who says otherwise. Including you.” She scooted forward to get closer to Yang, but had to pause, frowning at the lack of space in between her and Weiss and Blake.

“Is there a problem?” Blake asked her, amused.

“Yeah,” said Ruby. “You guys are taking up too much space. I want in on this.”

“We got here first,” said Weiss.

“She’s _my_ sister, you jerks!” Ruby whined, but there was no real annoyance in her voice. Then she apparently decided to stop being polite and proceeded to strong arm her way into the embrace, fighting with Weiss and Blake for a chance to hug Yang. 

They ended up toppling over in the ensuing scuffle. Yang soon found herself underneath a giant pile with her teammates resting comfortably on top of her, and yet she felt lighter than she ever had in a long time.

“Thanks, you guys. I mean it,” said Yang. There was a huge smile on her face now and she couldn’t be bothered to try and wipe it off. “Shit. Ruby, you’re the greatest sister I could have ever asked for. And you two.” Blake and Weiss both glanced at her. Yang felt so warm and so content in that moment. “You need to stop doing things that just make you more and more lovable. I’ve fallen hard enough already.”

“Sap,” Blake said affectionately. “Don’t think you’re the only one of us who feels that way, either.”

The four of them settled in, just lumped together like that. Ruby, who was at the top of the pile, was looking down at Yang with that happy little grin of hers, and Yang could only grin back. She was eternally grateful for having such a wonderful sister, and such wonderful teammates who were just so good at making day seem brighter too.

 

* * *

 

One afternoon a few days later Yang was taking a nap and woke up because Blake accidentally punched her in the face.

“I’m so sorry,” Blake was saying over and over again, while Yang tried to get a grip on reality around her. She returned back to consciousness to find Blake on top of her, cupping her cheeks in a panic, and Ruby laughing her head off somewhere else in the room.

“Blake?” Yang asked, still a little groggy from the nap. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” Blake said again. “I think—I think I was having a nightmare. I must have flailed in my sleep and hit you on accident.”

“Oh.” Yang smiled up at Blake and reached up to brush her cheek with her thumb. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. How are you feeling?”

“Better now that I’m awake,” said Blake. She sighed and lowered her voice. “It was about the Faunus workers in the mine. Sometimes I close my eyes and it’s all I can see.”

“Oh, Blake,” said Yang, as Blake basically collapsed into her arms, gently willing the tension to ease out of her shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. Take your time.”

“Weiss,” Ruby said from the other side of the room.

Yang lifted her head, craning her neck to see what Weiss and Ruby were up to. They were both sitting at Weiss’s desk, with Ruby perched on the table acting as Weiss’s honorary textbook holder. Except Weiss wasn’t even reading the textbook. She was too busy staring up into Ruby’s face instead.

“Ah, sorry,” said Weiss, shaking herself out of her stupor. She turned around in her seat and made eye contact with Yang. “What’s going on?”

“Blake is being stressed out,” Yang explained. That was apparently enough to spur them into action, as Weiss and Ruby both got up immediately and headed over to the combined beds.

“It’s okay,” said Blake, her words muffled by Yang’s shirt. “I’ve just been thinking about it a lot. I’m glad that so many people are protesting and calling for changes to be made but—I don’t know. It just seems like too little too slowly sometimes.”

Ruby reached the bed and climbed her way on while Weiss sat down at the edge near them. Yang rolled over and lightly dropped Blake onto her side so that Ruby could help cuddle her in between them.

“I know we’re not as well versed in this sorta stuff as you are,” said Ruby, “but if there’s anything you ever need from us, just say the word.”

“Of course,” said Blake with a small smile. “I really appreciate it. And I’ll be fine eventually, really. I think I just need to get out of my own head for a while.”

For a while none of them spoke. The seconds ticked by. Yang finally decided to give in to her urges and say what had been on her mind for a long time now.

“Speaking of that,” she said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you guys, if that’s okay.”

They all looked at her, curious. So Yang sat up, bringing Blake with her, and everyone arranged themselves into a circle on the bed.

“This is probably a bad time,” she began, “or maybe it’s a good time, in all honesty. We’ve all kind of been stuck in these kinds of thoughts for a while now. Maybe it’s time we try and get a break from that. And frankly, I don’t want to wait any longer.” She took a deep breath, looking at each of them meaningfully before continuing. “If you guys would let me, I would love to finally take one of you out on a date over the weekend.”

Ruby immediately started grinning. Blake and Weiss made eye contact with each other, and then Weiss looked away, suddenly embarrassed. It was the cutest thing Yang had ever witnessed.

“Which one of us?” Blake asked, almost a little shy.

“I don’t mind who,” said Yang. “The White Fang attack is over now, and I want to get the ball rolling. Hell, I’ll take you both on a date at the same time if that’s what you want.”

“Do not do that,” Ruby interrupted her with a pout. “At least leave someone for me. Meanie.”

Yang laughed at that. “Fair enough,” she said. She was glad to see that the mood had lightened considerably, and that Blake seemed much more relaxed than she had earlier when she’d just woken up. “Well, what’s it gonna be, ladies? You guys wanna fight over me or something?”

“Nah, it’s okay. Weiss can go first, I don’t mind,” said Blake, her voice just as teasing. “Save the best for last, right?”

“Well, in that case, I agree,” said Weiss. “Save Blake for last. I’ll go with you.”

Blake blinked at that, evidently surprised by Weiss’s response. “Wait, no,” she said. “If we’re really going by that then all of you should be after me.”

“Really, guys?” said Yang. She was struggling not to laugh again. “Are we turning this into a self-deprecating contest now? Because the next person to think that they’re not the best is getting a five-page essay from me on why exactly they’re wrong and why they are in fact one of the most wonderful people on this planet.”

They all stared at her. Ruby snorted.

“This whole team is a trainwreck,” she said. “Just flip a coin or something, you weirdos.”

“Do you have a coin?” Yang asked her pointedly.

“No,” Ruby admitted. She fumbled around in her pocket for a few seconds before pulling out her scroll. Then she tossed it to Yang. “Use that or something. Heads you go with Weiss, tails you go with Blake. Easy peasy.”

“Okay.”

Just to be annoying, Yang chucked Ruby’s scroll at the opposite wall, where it hit the surface and then clattered to the ground. Ruby let out a very loud, very dramatic sigh before scrambling back up so she could retrieve her scroll.

“It landed face up,” she announced. “So the first date goes to Weiss and Yang. You’re welcome.”

“Sweet.” Yang turned to face Weiss, who was determinedly not looking back, even though she was already doing a terrible job at hiding her hopeful, excited smile. “I hope that’s okay with everyone?”

“Yeah,” said Weiss. She glanced up at Blake. “Sorry about this.”

“Don’t be,” Blake told her. “Besides, that just means I get to hang out with Ruby all by myself that day.”

Ruby had barely even made it back onto the bed with her scroll in hand before Blake rolled over on top of her and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Ah, jeez,” Ruby said, laughing as she wrapped her arms around Blake’s neck. “Not that I’m not enjoying this, but Team JNPR has been bothering me for the past ten minutes asking to meet up for dinner already. We can save the cuddling for the weekend.”

“Screw Team JNPR,” said Blake.

Ruby laughed again and leaned up to kiss Blake on the nose. “Don’t be so rude,” she said, grinning like an idiot the whole time. “Come on, Blake. Nora’s gonna freak out if we keep her waiting any longer. You giant baby.”

So Blake relented and got off the bed, Ruby following shortly after. Yang watched them head towards the door together, and then looked at Weiss, who was still sitting there looking a little blank. She grinned and stood up, holding out a hand towards Weiss.

“We can discuss the details of the date together later,” Yang told her. Weiss had just enough sense left to take Yang’s hand and let herself be helped to her feet. “But I’m really, really looking forward to it.”

“Yeah,” Weiss said quietly, a faint smile on her face. “Me too.”

They headed over to the door, where Blake and Ruby were standing there waiting for them. Yang’s heart was really beating fast now. She felt super giddy even just looking at any of her teammates. Sure, things were still kind of a mess, and they all had a lot of stuff they needed to power through, but at least they could do it together. At least things were finally looking up again.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i definitely had way too much fun with this lol
> 
> i hope you guys enjoy and as always thank you so much for all the kindness and support you've all given me c:

Weiss knew she’d been smiling like an idiot all weekend. She couldn’t help herself. It felt like she was on top of the world.

The thoughts of her father and his company and the mine and all the Faunus workers who toiled away in it still plagued her every once in a while, but she kept herself taking one step after another, fueled on by the fact that Yang was going to be taking her on a date at the end of the day.

She probably looked so happy. It must have been freaking everyone else out.

“Are you okay, Weiss?” Jaune asked her.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I am,” said Weiss.

They were sitting together at a table in a secluded part of the library along with Sun and Nora. The four of them were supposed to be studying, but the others had given up not even thirty minutes in and Weiss was too giddy to focus in the first place.

“Someone’s in a really good mood,” said Sun, propping his head up on his arm. He grinned at Weiss. “What happened? Did you win the lottery or what?”

“Something like that,” said Weiss. “I’m… going on a date later tonight.”

She didn’t know why she was so comfortable with telling them about it. Maybe she just wanted someone to share the excitement with. The way Sun’s mouth dropped open and the way Jaune and Nora both lit up was extremely satisfying, though.

“No way!” said Sun, leaning forward excitedly.

“Who are you going with?” Jaune asked.

Weiss looked at all of them. Her heartbeat was going so fast, thumping away in her chest. She couldn’t stop smiling. “It’s with Yang.”

Sun actually tilted his head back and let out a muffled scream into his hands. Jaune looked like he was having a revelation. Nora, meanwhile, started pounding the table with her fist.

“So _that’s_ who it was!” she shouted, pointing triumphantly at Weiss. “It was _you_ all along that she was madly in love with!”

“What?” said Weiss, mostly confused but also a little bit flattered.

“Yang told me and Pyrrha way back when that she had the biggest crush on someone and was trying to figure out how to ask them out,” Nora explained. “You’re telling me that it took her _this_ long to do it? I’m disappointed in her.”

“Oh come on, Nora,” said Jaune. “Asking someone out takes a lot of guts. Especially someone as amazing as Weiss.” He was grinning and seemed genuinely happy for her, and in that moment Weiss’s appreciation for him increased tenfold.

“Oh, whatever, this is so exciting!” said Nora. She pumped her fists in the air. “I better go let her know that I’m gonna beat her up if she treats you wrong.”

Sun let out a snort. “Good luck with that,” he told her. 

“I’ve knocked her through the ceiling with a watermelon and a stick once,” Nora said solemnly. “I can definitely do it again.” 

“Guys, I think I’ll be fine,” Weiss said with a small smile. “It’ll be great. Yang is great.”

“Aw, that’s so disgustingly cute,” said Sun.

Weiss briefly considered telling them about the fact that she wasn’t the only person Yang was madly in love with, or that Yang wasn’t the only person _she_ was crushing hard on as well. But then she took one look at Jaune and decided he’d already had his mind blown hard enough today. Maybe it would be funnier to just let things happen the way they were and watch their reactions to it when it did.

“Man, who needs studying when beautiful relationships are unfolding right before our very eyes?” said Nora. 

“I mean, the test is still on Friday,” Jaune reminded her.

Nora groaned and shoved her open textbook away. “Which is stupid. Like, it’s tournament season. The first-year team semifinals are literally tomorrow! No one has time for history anymore. This is just plain rude.” Then she paused, her eyes widening. “Wait a second. Did we ever find out who we were gonna be fighting?”

“Um, no?” said Jaune, confused. “I mean, we’ve kind of just been walking into our matches blind this entire time, why do you care now—ah.”

“Am I missing something here?” said Weiss.

“Weiss, only four teams make it to the semifinals, right?” said Nora.

“Um, that’s what the term implies, yes.” But she was already starting to see where Nora was going with this.

“And everyone who’s sitting here right now,” Nora continued, “is on a team that made it to the semifinals.” She glanced at Sun. “Do you know which team you’re up against?”

Sun scooted back in his chair and kicked his legs up against the table. “I’m pretty sure I would have remembered if it was one of you guys,” he said, putting his hands up behind his head. “So Penny’s, probably. Team CPPR or whatever. That’ll be fun.”

Weiss looked at Nora, who was already staring back, her expression steadily growing in intensity.

“You guys are going down,” Nora said.

“How’d it take you guys this long to figure it out?” Sun asked, clearly amused. “I honestly thought you already knew.”

“In my defense, I was preoccupied with other things,” said Weiss.

The others made various noises of sympathy. Then Jaune spoke again. “In our defense…” he began, before stopping and then shrugging. “Yeah, I got nothing.”

“Don’t even pretend like you know who you’re fighting on your own accord,” Nora said to Sun. “I bet if it hadn’t been for your teammates nagging you about it you wouldn’t have bothered checking either.”

Sun made a face and stuck his tongue out at Nora. “Shut up, nerd.”

“You know what, Weiss?” said Nora without taking her eyes off of Sun. She grinned. “Can you and your teammates give us the win tomorrow so I can personally kick Sun’s ass on live TV next week?”

“Doesn’t that assume that Sun’s going to win his match tomorrow first?” said Weiss.

“Hey! Don’t gang up on me like this,” Sun protested. “That’s rude. You’re all rude!”

Nora started laughing. Sun was trying extremely hard not to join her. They kept bickering back and forth for the rest of the study session. Jaune caught Weiss’s eye from across the table and grinned sheepishly, already resigned to Sun and Nora’s silly antics. Weiss couldn’t help but smile back.

 

* * *

 

When she returned to the dorm she found Ruby, Blake, and Yang all huddled up together on the combined bed. Ruby had her head in Blake’s lap, and Yang was looking at her scroll, her other arm around Blake’s waist while Blake herself played with Ruby’s hair. The sight of the three of them just relaxing together made Weiss feel so warm and happy inside.

The second they noticed her standing there, Blake tapped Ruby on the side of her forehead. A moment later, Ruby had opened her eyes, spotted Weiss, and immediately scrambled off the bed and appeared by her side.

“Hey,” she said, grinning.

“Hello,” said Weiss. “What’s with the rush?”

“What? Can’t I just be super excited to see you?” Ruby asked, as Blake got off the bed and came over to stand on Weiss’s other side.

Weiss stared at her suspiciously. Ruby’s smile was way too innocent. “You guys are plotting something, aren’t you?”

“Oh, you bet we are,” Blake responded. She wrapped her arms around Weiss’s shoulders and tugged her in, hugging her close. Then she turned to look at Yang. “Okay, Yang, get out.”

“Wait, what?” Yang said, looking offended.

“You’re gonna be whisking Weiss away to some faraway place all by yourself later tonight,” Ruby explained, latching onto Weiss’s arm. “So Blake and I are gonna spend some quality time with her before you do that. Got it?”

“I mean, I understand, but come on,” said Yang, but she was clearly okay with it, though, if the giant grin on her face was anything to go by. “Don’t you guys wanna spend any quality time with me, too?”

“I’m sorry, were the past few hours not quality enough for you?” Ruby said pointedly.

“Good point.” Yang shrugged and got up from the bed, heading towards the doorway. She stopped in front of Weiss, smiling down at her with so much fondness in her expression that Weiss felt her heart skip a beat. “I can’t wait for tonight. I really hope you’ll like what I have planned.”

“I probably will,” Weiss managed to get out. Any more words than that and she might have lost control of her mouth.

“See, this is why we need to separate you two,” Blake said, smiling fondly at Yang. “You’re going to make her faint before the date even happens if you stay near her for too long.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Yang brought her hand up and gently tapped Weiss on the nose with her finger before flashing her one last grin and then leaving the room.

In the ensuing silence Blake and Ruby both let go of Weiss. She looked at them, still suspicious.

“So,” said Weiss. “What exactly are you two plotting?”

“Many things,” Ruby told her. “How’d Yang tell you to dress? Casual, right? We gotta pick out something for you to wear!” And with that, Ruby started dragging Weiss towards her closet.

“I don’t get a say in this, do I?” Weiss asked.

“Nope,” Blake said cheerfully from behind her.

The next hour and a half passed by in a blur. Ruby and Blake just seemed to keep finding new reasons to tease Weiss every few minutes. They’d tried to find something in Weiss’s own closet only to discover that hardly anything she owned really qualified as casual. Then they started looking through Blake’s, found out a lot of her stuff was too big to fit on Weiss, and went to Ruby’s. Eventually, though, Weiss could have sworn they were spending more time cuddling than actually doing anything to prepare for the date.

“I’m telling you,” Ruby was saying from where she was comfortably sprawled out across both Blake and Weiss’s laps. “We’re the closest in size. I know I have a pair of jeans somewhere in there that could fit you pretty well.”

“Don’t you think that’s kind of weird?” said Weiss.

“How so?” Ruby asked. With Weiss playing with her hair, and Blake rubbing her hand up and down her calf, Ruby seemed to be enjoying the attention immensely. “It can be like I’m there with you in spirit. Like we’re on a date together too.”

“Yes. On the same date I’m going on where the other party is your sister.”

“Oh,” said Ruby. Blake started laughing.

They kept at it for a while longer. Ruby and Blake did most of the talking. Weiss was content to just sit there and listen to Ruby ramble and Blake make the occasional small comment to let Ruby know she was still listening.

Then, a few minutes later, her scroll started buzzing.

She shifted a little, trying her best to pull it out of her pocket without dislodging Ruby. The second she saw who was calling her, she froze.

Because of course he would choose this moment, this point in time when she was at her happiest, and make it come crashing down all around her.

“Weiss?” Ruby asked, looking worried. She tried to get up, careful not to accidentally bump into Weiss as she did. “What’s wrong?”

Blake leaned over and caught sight of the scroll’s blinking screen first. Her expression immediately shifted to one of concern.

“I’m not going to pick it up,” Weiss said out loud, more for herself than Ruby or Blake. “I’m not going to let him ruin tonight. If he wants to talk to me, he can wait.”

She’d known, deep down, that her father was going to come calling eventually. A small part of her had hoped that maybe, just maybe, he’d leave her alone instead. She wondered what he wanted to talk to her about. Maybe he was concerned that she’d nearly died at the mine that day. Or maybe he was furious with her for indirectly helping expose the terrible working conditions his company enforced.

The scroll continued buzzing for a few seconds, and then fell silent. Weiss took a deep breath. Blake had a hand on her shoulder, and Ruby had intertwined their fingers together.

“I’m alright,” said Weiss.

She felt horrible. Here she was, sitting in her room several days after discovering how truly disgusting the company’s business practices were, and the thing she was the most terrified of instead was her father.

Blake leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s okay if you’re not.”

A few seconds later, her scroll starting ringing again. He was trying to call her repeatedly, which was probably not a good thing. Blake gently tugged the scroll out of her hand, and when Weiss didn’t protest, closed it shut. The room fell silent again.

“How much longer do I have?” Weiss asked.

Ruby checked the time for her. “About twenty minutes,” she said. “Why?”

“Can you guys just stay with me until then?” said Weiss, and she almost hated how weak and small she sounded. “Please?”

“Of course,” Ruby said softly. 

So they did. And Weiss forced herself to try and calm down, to brush away the feeling of dread that was starting to settle itself into her stomach.

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later Weiss met up with Yang outside the entrance to Beacon.

“Hey,” Yang said when she caught sight of her.

“Hi,” said Weiss, trying to offer Yang a small smile. It came easier than she’d expected, because just being around her teammates had that effect on her, but Yang must have noticed how reluctant it had been.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, reaching out and taking Weiss’s hand with her own.

“Yeah. Sorry.” Weiss stared down at the ground for a few seconds, then looked back up at Yang. “My father called, earlier.”

Yang didn’t react visibly, but Weiss felt her grip tense up just a tiny bit. “How did that go?” she asked.

“It didn’t. I didn’t pick up.”

“Ah.” Yang brought her other hand up to cradle Weiss’s face, brushing her thumb over her cheek. “You’re really strong, you know that?”

Weiss let out a small laugh at that. “It definitely doesn’t feel that way.”

“You are. Trust me,” said Yang, smiling. “And we’ve got the next couple of hours all to ourselves now. Tonight it’s gonna be all about you and me. Your dad can go eat a pound of bricks, I’m gonna be here and make his daughter as happy as I possibly can.”

“Okay.” Weiss smiled again, and this time, it was genuine. “Thank you.”

“Hey, I’ve always got your back,” said Yang. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Weiss’s forehead, letting it linger there for a while longer. When she pulled back her expression was so filled with affection. Weiss felt more and more dazed the longer she looked, and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

Their first date hadn’t even started yet, and Weiss had already fallen so hard.

“I’ve got yours, too,” Weiss was eventually able to say after a while, reaching over to poke Yang in the stomach. “And don’t you forget that.”

“Of course, of course.” 

They left on Yang’s motorcycle together, heading deep into the heart of Vale. This was the part of the city that was bustling with everyday life. Most of the restaurants and stores on these streets were family owned, and all sorts of people were going about their day, strolling up and down the sidewalk towards their destinations.

Eventually Yang found a partially empty lot at the end of an intersection and parked her motorcycle there, helping Weiss down to her feet.

“It’s a bit of a walk,” Yang told her, pointing down one of the streets. “But I promise it’s worth it.”

So they took off together, easily merging in with everyone else who was already out on the sidewalk. It was all so upbeat and lively. Weiss thought that if she’d had the choice, she might like to live somewhere like this in the future.

She imagined what it would be like to settle down here. Maybe she could buy a nice little house in the middle of it all that was just the right size to be cozy, but not cramped. Or maybe it’d have to be a bit bigger than that so that Ruby and Yang didn’t accidentally tear the place up with their antics. She hoped that one of them was at least decent at cooking, because she knew she wasn’t very good. Maybe Blake or Yang would be better at that. They could slay monsters by day and relax together in the comfort of their home at night. 

Then she thought of the Schnee Dust Company and her status as its heiress, and of her father and the indifferent way he used to lie to her about the conditions in the mines, and her little storybook happy ending popped.

Yang didn’t say anything to her as they continued to walk, but she had taken Weiss’s hand again, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“You know what?” said Weiss. Yang glanced over at her, curious and attentive. “You’re right. My father _can_ go choke himself on a pound of bricks. I’m currently on a date with one of the most amazing people in my life and I’m going to enjoy it.”

The smile Yang gave her in response made it all worth it.

They kept walking down the sidewalk in a peaceful silence, holding hands and staying close. Weiss glanced over at all the stores and restaurants they passed. It was around dinnertime and the sun was starting to set, so all the restaurants were packed and rowdy, especially the ones that had outdoor patios.

“Okay, wait,” said Yang. “I have to ask you something. I’ve been thinking about it ever since we got here.”

“What is it?” said Weiss.

Yang pulled her off to the side, out of the way of the passersby. She glanced at her up and down once and then grinned. “Are you wearing my sister’s shirt?”

“These are her pants, too,” Weiss admitted. “She and Blake kept insisting on it because apparently all of my clothes aren’t casual enough. So in the end I just gave up and let them have their way with my outfit.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little weird?” Yang said, her grin only widening.

“Yes, I did, I swear,” said Weiss, embarrassed, as Yang started laughing. “This was all Ruby’s idea, not mine. Go take it up with her!”

“No, it’s fine,” Yang was quick to reassure her. She slung an arm over Weiss’s shoulders and pulled her in, still smiling. “It’s cute. I mean, it’s still kind of weird, but it’s you, so I don’t mind.”

Weiss was too mortified to respond, so she just buried her face in Yang’s chest. Yang dutifully continued to hold her close, stroking the back of her head in an attempt to appease her.

“Come on,” Yang said eventually. “Let’s keep walking.”

So they did. After a few more minutes Yang led Weiss to a narrow opening in between two restaurants and headed through the gap. When they reached the other side, she turned around, clearly excited to see Weiss’s reaction to what was standing before them.

Weiss kept staring for a moment longer.

“Food trucks?” she finally said. “Really?”

“They’re all really good,” Yang said, undeterred. She pointed with her thumb behind her. “That one over there makes an amazing pulled pork sandwich. But you can take your pick, whichever one you like.”

Weiss took a closer look at the small circle of food trucks that surrounded the clearing. She realized that there were quite a few options, and they did all seem to be of pretty decent quality, at the very least. There were a considerable amount of people lining up at the various trucks and sitting in the center, where a bunch of picnic tables had been strewn about for public use.

In the end they wandered around for a little bit before Weiss decided on just going for the pulled pork, and Yang ordered a large sandwich that they could share between the two of them. They stood off to the side as they waited for the meal. Weiss looked around her surroundings, watching as other people went up to the truck’s window to place their own orders, feeling the chilly autumn breeze in the air and hearing the crunch of the pebbles underfoot as people made their way around the clearing. Yang’s hand was on the small of her back, keeping her grounded in the present.

A few minutes later they got their food. It was less of a sandwich and more just two slices of bread packed with a mountain of pulled pork in between. Yang took the little paper tray from the vendor and brought it down to show Weiss, a giant grin on her face. Weiss had to admit that it did smell really good.

“You want a fork to eat this?” Yang asked her. “This could probably get messy.” Without waiting for an answer, Yang reached up and grabbed a plastic fork out of the tin on the counter, stabbing it into the pulled pork so that it was sticking right up out of it. “Oh, wait, do you want one for yourself or do you wanna share?”

“I mean—I don’t—I don’t really care either way,” Weiss tried to say, because Yang’s teasing smile was making it really hard to process thoughts coherently. Yang got another fork and stuck it in right next to the first one. Then she reached for a third. “Wait—what are you doing?”

“I dunno,” said Yang. “The more, the merrier, right?” She got a fourth fork and stabbed that in as well. By the time she was reaching for the fifth, Weiss had come to her senses enough to slap her hand away.

“Yang!” she said, grabbing her by the wrist so that she’d stop moving. “Stop! That’s too many forks.”

She knew Yang was doing it just to mess with her, if that infuriatingly happy grin was anything to go by. The exasperation must have been showing on her face, because Yang took one look at her and started laughing.

“Sorry,” she managed to say through her laughter, still clutching onto the paper tray and the sandwich with the four forks stuck in it.

“You’re the worst,” said Weiss.

“I know,” said Yang, the smile never once leaving her face. Weiss tried to will her heart to stop beating so fast and failed.

Soon enough they found an empty picnic table and sat down next to each other. Yang slid the tray in between them and they dug in.

“Okay, you were right,” Weiss said after a while. “This is pretty good.”

“Told you so,” Yang said brightly. “Check this out.”

She picked up two of the forks and held them both in the same hand like a pair of chopsticks, except so much worse. Then she clicked them together in Weiss’s face, looking at her expectantly.

“What do you want me to say to this?” Weiss asked her, trying to look unamused. “That you’re ridiculous and you look ridiculous?”

“You love me,” said Yang, grinning.

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re full of nonsense.”

“Aha! So you admit it,” Yang said triumphantly, leaning in close. “You _do_ love me!”

Weiss scooped up some pulled pork with her own fork and shoved it into Yang’s mouth so that she’d shut up. Yang, to her credit, accepted the food without making a fuss, even if she kept smiling through it and making Weiss’s heart freak out in response.

A short while later, as they were beginning to finish up, Yang’s scroll let out a dinging noise. She fished it out of her pocket and clicked it open. Weiss leaned over to see what it was, curious.

Blake had sent them a photo of her and Ruby. With Weiss and Blake’s beds still smashed together and Yang’s bunk still attached on top of Blake’s, it looked like they had gone ahead and turned the whole contraption into one massive blanket fort. They’d lined the interior of the fort with blankets, pillows, and a boatload of snacks. Blake was staring up at the camera with Ruby curled on top of her. Ruby had her face pressed into Blake’s neck. They both looked super comfortable and extremely content.

“Nice,” said Yang. Weiss didn’t miss the way she tried to surreptitiously save the photo to her scroll.

“Jealous?” Weiss asked her.

“Of course,” said Yang. She patted her leg and turned on the camera on her own scroll. “Get over here, we can’t let them beat us.”

So Weiss clambered her way onto Yang’s lap, clutching onto the front of her shirt. Yang wrapped an arm around her waist and looked up at the camera. But Weiss was staring at Yang’s face instead.

“Oh, you have a…” Weiss said, distracted. “There’s a smudge on your face, right here—”

She didn’t know what came over her, but she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the corner of Yang’s mouth. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t just rubbed it off with her finger like a normal person, but it was too late now. And of course Yang had chosen that moment to take the picture.

“I feel like this perfectly encapsulates how I feel on the inside anytime I’m near one of you,” Yang said with a laugh as she checked the photo.

Weiss looked at it too. She had her eyes closed, kissing Yang’s cheek sweetly. Yang herself was looking at the camera, clearly surprised, her expression almost one of wonder.

“Cute,” Weiss said quietly, before she realized she’d accidentally said that out loud. But Yang just beamed at her and sent the photo to Blake and Ruby.

By the time they finished and cleaned up at the table, it was starting to get dark out. Weiss shivered a little in the cold night air. 

“You okay?” asked Yang.

“It’s cold,” said Weiss. 

She wondered why Ruby had chosen such a light outfit for her tonight. They all knew that it was well into fall by now, and nighttime in Vale at this time of year could get uncomfortably chilly. 

Then her eyes landed on Yang’s jacket. Yang noticed at the same time.

“Kinda sneaky, don’t you think?” she said, grinning as she shrugged out of her jacket and helped Weiss get her arms through it. The second it was around her shoulders Weiss relaxed into it, the material still warm from Yang’s body heat.

“I claim no responsibility for anything that occurs because of my outfit tonight,” Weiss said, bringing the jacket tighter around herself. “Ruby and Blake set me up for this.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” said Yang. “You look good. I like it.” Her expression softened. “You ready to head out?”

“Oh, are we going back to Beacon now?”

“I mean, only if you want.” Yang led the way out of the clearing and back onto the street, while Weiss followed after her. “I’ve got a couple of ideas for what we can do next if you don’t wanna go back yet. Sorry if you were expecting a more fixed schedule. I’m kind of bad at those.”

“It’s fine,” said Weiss. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, we could go to the beach,” Yang suggested. “The coast’s not too far from here. I know a nice little stretch of sand that I guarantee you will be completely empty except for the two of us, especially at this time of night.”

“In this weather?” Weiss asked. “It’s cold out.”

Yang just smiled back, and Weiss had to remind herself to breathe. “Well you’d better stick close to me then, huh?”

 

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes after that and Weiss found herself holding onto Yang with one hand while she tried to get her shoes and socks off with the other. Just as Yang had said, the little part of the coast they were on was deserted except for them. The sand felt soft and cool in between her toes.

“Did you see the ocean a lot back home?” Yang asked her, busying herself with taking off her own shoes.

“Not really,” said Weiss. “Atlas isn’t exactly near the coast.” She took a tentative step forward, feeling the sand sink and part beneath her foot. “I’m guessing you’re more familiar with it.”

“That’s an understatement.” Yang grinned at her and dropped her shoes to the ground. “When you grow up on a tiny island, the beach kind of becomes your go-to vacation option.”

“I see,” said Weiss. She held her own shoes in one hand, glancing at where Yang had thrown hers onto the sand, uncertain. Yang laughed and held out her hand.

“Just toss em here,” Yang told her. “We can come back for them later. No one’s gonna steal a couple of pairs of shoes off the ground.”

Weiss was still wary, but she decided to trust Yang anyway and handed her shoes over, which Yang then dropped down next to hers. “What now?” she asked.

“Good question,” said Yang. “You ever run across a beach at full speed at night?”

“What?” said Weiss. 

“You heard me.” In response, Yang simply reached over and pinched her on the cheek. Then she grinned and took off sprinting in the opposite direction, kicking up sand behind her as she went.

“Hey!” Weiss protested, reaching out to try and grab Yang, but she had already dashed away, making her way down the shoreline. “Get back here!” With no other options, she started running after Yang too.

All she could hear was the wind blowing in her ears and the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the shore and Yang’s bright, carefree laughter as they tore across the beach. Weiss felt Yang’s jacket whipping around her so she drew it closer to herself, trying to keep warm while she chased after Yang.

Then, before she realized it, Yang had abruptly stopped running and turned around. Weiss crashed right into her, but Yang was ready and scooped her up by the waist, spinning her around once before coming to a stop again.

“Gotcha,” she said, grinning up at Weiss.

“Ah,” said Weiss, instinctively putting her hands on Yang’s shoulders to help stay balanced. She could feel her face heating up, staring down at Yang who was so close to her, so she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind that wasn’t absolute lovestruck nonsense. “I think I’m getting sand all over your pants.”

Yang laughed. “That’s okay.” She let Weiss squirm for a few moments longer before dropping her back down onto her feet. Weiss took a few seconds to get her bearings back, then turned to stare out across the water, watching as it rippled and shimmered under the night sky. She let out a sigh.

“This is nice,” she said.

“I thought you might like it,” Yang said happily. “We should come back here sometime with Ruby and Blake. Then we could make a catapult together and launch Ruby into the ocean.”

Weiss made a face trying not to smile. “What’s with you and your obsession with wanting to hurl your sister across all these different places?”

“Hey, do you know what it feels like to have her repeatedly crash into you full force while she’s using her semblance?” said Yang. “When we were kids and first learning how to fight together, she sent me flying more times than I’d like to admit. It’s only fair I return the favor at some point.”

“You two are absurd,” said Weiss.

“True,” Yang agreed with a smile. “Okay fine. Blake, then. We can throw her into the water instead.”

“Maybe I should throw you in right now.”

“Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try.”

Within seconds a bright, shining glyph had formed under Yang’s feet. Yang seemed to process what was going on a moment later, and then immediately reached forward, grabbing Weiss by the front of her shirt and tugging her into a tight hug. “Noo,” Yang whined dramatically. “Weiss, don’t do it. If I go down, we go down together.”

“I wasn’t actually going to throw you in, idiot,” said Weiss, but she willingly sank into Yang’s embrace anyway. “I’m not _that_ mean.”

“Oh, really? Well that’s news to me,” said Yang. Weiss didn’t even have to see Yang’s face to know that she was grinning. She let out a huff.

“That does not mean you’re off the hook just yet. Especially if you keep that up.”

“Okay, okay.” Yang pulled back just far enough so that she could hold Weiss at arm’s length. The sappy, affectionate look she gave her made Weiss’s heart flutter so badly that she got distracted and the glyph underneath them phased out of existence.

“Stop it,” Weiss said, embarrassed, and she had to look away before she internally combusted even further. “How am I possibly supposed to do anything properly when you give me that face?”

“I could say the same thing about you,” said Yang. She laughed a little. “I take one look at you, or at Blake, and I immediately get this intense feeling of like, oh wow, I’d move a mountain for you without hesitation if you asked.”

Weiss didn’t even know what to say to that. At least Yang didn’t seem to mind. She held out her hand for Weiss to take, and then intertwined their fingers when she did. For a while they just strolled down the beach together, hand in hand, enjoying the scenery. Weiss could see the bright lights of the city off in the distance, but here, it was just the two of them, alone, with the sound of the ocean and the feeling of the sand beneath their feet. It was still cold out, but with Yang so close by, Weiss found that she didn’t really mind it.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed after that, too busy enjoying the feeling of being with Yang. But eventually she realized it had gotten late enough that it was well and truly dark at that point, and Weiss had to stifle a yawn.

“Tired?” Yang asked her.

“A little bit,” said Weiss. “I like being out here with you, though.”

“Aw, I like being with you too.” Yang smiled, swinging their joined hands back and forth a little. “We can head back now, if you want. Don’t want you passing out on the sand out here.”

“Okay,” said Weiss.

It took a while to get all the sand off their feet and their shoes back on. On the ride back to Beacon, Weiss thought she might have almost fell asleep pressed up against Yang’s back, lulled by the constant rumbling of the motorcycle engine and the steadiness of Yang’s breathing.

Before long they were making their way up the stairs to their dorm. It was late, and the hallways were mostly empty. Yang opened the door to their room and Weiss stepped in, the massive blanket fort Blake and Ruby had thrown together earlier still intact in front of her. Blake and Ruby themselves were still snuggled up inside it, but Blake stirred when she heard Weiss and Yang enter.

“Welcome back,” she said sleepily, rubbing at her eyes. She tried to get up, but Ruby being sprawled out on top of her made it a little difficult. “Ruby, wake up.”

“Huh?” said Ruby. “What’s going on?” She blinked open her eyes and glanced around the room before spotting Weiss and Yang. “Oh! Hey guys. Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” said Weiss with a small smile. Blake managed to gently pry Ruby off of herself before getting up from the bed, only to have Ruby immediately hop to her feet anyway and follow her over to the center of the room. The four of them stood together in a circle, just holding each other close. Weiss felt exhausted and content at the same time. The date with Yang had been wonderful, but it was good to be back with all of her teammates again.

“Nice jacket,” Blake said.

“Thank you,” said Weiss. “I think so too.” 

“You’re welcome,” Ruby said with a cheeky grin, and Weiss couldn’t even find it in herself to be annoyed. She laughed a little, but sobered up quickly. 

“Yang,” she began. She could feel Ruby’s hand on her back and Blake’s on her shoulder, rubbing at it in comforting circles. “Thanks for tonight. Really. I think… I think it was good for me.”

“I get that,” said Yang. “We all need a break from the awful things in life, sometimes. I’m glad that you’re feeling better.” Then her expression lit up. “Ah. That reminds me, there’s one thing left that I wanted to do.”

“And what is that?” Weiss asked.

Yang just smiled at her and stepped forward. Ruby and Blake helped tug her in closer as she reached up and tilted Weiss chin’s upwards until they were face to face.

“Can I kiss you?” she asked.

“Oh.” Weiss suddenly felt like the ground had disappeared from underneath her. Her brain stopped working. “Ah—yeah. Yes. Sure. I think?”

Blake was laughing at her. Yang’s smile only widened, and she glanced at Ruby first, then at Blake. “I hope you guys are cool with that?”

“I don’t know why you think we wouldn’t be,” Blake answered, grinning.

“Just wanted to make sure.” Yang turned back to face Weiss, her expression softening. Weiss could only stare back, trying her best to stay calm. Yang was so close. “You know, I’ve wanted to do this for a really, really long time now.”

“Then you should do it,” Weiss managed to say.

Yang smiled. “As you wish.”

Then she leaned in and kissed her.

Weiss had just enough presence of mind left to be grateful that Ruby and Blake were there to support her. Her hands came up to rest on Yang’s hips in an attempt pull herself closer. She could feel Yang trying not to grin against her lips, which only made her heart beat even faster, and the warmth start spreading across her chest.

She didn’t know what cosmic forces were kind enough to lead her to this very moment, standing in her dorm room at Beacon kissing Yang with Ruby and Blake standing with her, all of them just together, but she knew that no matter what hardships life decided to throw at them, her teammates made it all worth it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ew sorry this took so long lol

Ruby twirled her scythe in her hand, standing in a line along with the rest of her teammates. Across from them, Nora was dragging her thumb across her throat, trying to look as menacing as possible. The stands were packed with even more people than usual, all shouting and cheering.

“Well, this is certainly an exciting matchup,” came Professor Port’s voice, booming over the loudspeakers in the Amity Colosseum. “The first fight of the semifinals is finally here, and it’s between Teams JNPR and RWBY, arguably two of the most talented teams of Beacon Academy’s first year students. They’ve both been doing fantastically in this tournament so far, but it looks like one of their journeys is getting cut short today as they face off against each other.”

Ruby tried to focus on Port’s commentary, but it was hard when everyone on the arena floor was staring intimidatingly at one another. Earlier that morning had been hectic. After just narrowly avoiding starting another food fight with JNPR at breakfast, they’d only had a couple of hours to devise a game plan before both teams were due to arrive in the Amity Colosseum. She honestly wasn’t sure how they’d all managed to get up here without tearing each other’s heads off. But here they were, grouped together on the center platform with the rocky cliffs of the desert rising up on one side and the rough, uneven terrain of the lava biome spread out over the other.

Everyone at Beacon knew that RWBY and JNPR were all close friends, and that they spent an ungodly amount of time sparring and training together. Ruby wouldn’t be surprised if Jaune and the others knew her team’s weaknesses in and out. She guessed that his plans would probably revolve around splitting them up and keeping them far, far apart from each other.

“They know we’re a lot stronger when we’re together,” Ruby had told her teammates. “I don’t think we can stop them if they’re determined to keep us separated, but what we can do is control _how_ we’re split up so that the matchups are in our favor.”

“What are you proposing, then?” Weiss had asked.

Ruby glanced at her sheepishly. “Well, I was actually gonna suggest that you go after Pyrrha.” When Weiss’s eyes widened Ruby hastened to explain further. “You don’t have to, like, take her out on your own or anything! But you’re the best at keeping up with her. Just try to keep her distracted for as long as possible until the rest of us are free to join you and help.”

“And what will the rest of us be doing in the meantime?” Blake asked.

“Um,” said Ruby. “How would you feel if I told you to do the same with Nora?”

Blake grimaced. “Unpleasant.” She took Gambol Shroud off her back, fiddling with the magazine at the bottom. “But I’ll do it just for you.”

“Aww,” said Yang. Blake elbowed her in the stomach, grinning.

That left Ruby and Yang to double up against Ren and Jaune first. Ruby cycled through the plan over and over again in her head, readying her scythe and trying not to let the thrill and anticipation of the impending fight get to her. Yang and Nora were already attempting to burn holes in each other’s faces with just their eyeballs. Soon enough the holographic timer appeared in the air around them.

“Well, let’s not keep the audience waiting any longer,” Oobleck was saying.

The crowd was so noisy. It seemed like everyone had come to tune into their fight, being one of the most anticipated matches of the entire tournament. 

“Ready?” Port said, as the timer began to count down. “Three. Two. One. Begin!”

Almost immediately, Ren and Nora came charging forward together, making a beeline for Ruby. Pyrrha was a bit further behind them, with all three of them making sure Jaune was covered at the very back of the formation. But before anyone could bridge the gap between the two teams and start fighting, a ribbon whipped in and wrapped itself around Nora’s wrist.

“Sorry,” Blake said from off to the side, smiling innocently at Nora while yanking her over. “You’re coming with me.”

Ruby swung her scythe at Ren before he could react, baiting him into a fight, while Weiss ran over and boxed Pyrrha in with a series of glyphs. Thrown off course, Jaune paused in his tracks, looking like he was struggling to come up with a way to try and reorient his team. Then Yang launched herself at him and cut him off.

Ren was really, _really_ fast. He wasn’t afraid to get up within Crescent Rose’s reach to attack, and soon Ruby found herself being pushed further and further back into the desert. The sand kept shifting underneath her feet and throwing off her balance, and for a while she was actually worried she might lose the advantage.

Then Jaune came flying through the air, letting out a choked cry when he hit the ground on his back a few feet away from them. Seconds later, Yang had caught up with them as well.

“Hey sis,” she said, aiming a punch at Jaune as he was getting up and forcing Ren to dart in to block it for him. “You ready to get this party started?”

“Sure,” said Ruby, her confidence rushing back.

It was so easy to fall into step with Yang. They’d grown up learning to fight together, and teaming up was second nature by now. Once they managed to settle into a groove, Jaune and Ren didn’t stand a chance. Ren eventually was the first to get knocked out of the match, with Jaune following a short while after.

“That was good,” Yang told them after the two buzzers had gone off. “You guys put up a good fight.”

“Thanks,” Jaune said, wheezing. He looked over at something behind them. “You should probably pay attention to the rest of the fight, though.”

So Ruby turned around to find Blake sprinting towards her, Nora valiantly giving chase close behind. 

“Hey,” Blake said as she passed, looking out of breath and slightly terrified. “Can we switch real quick?”

Without waiting for an answer, she kept running, reaching out to grab Yang by the arm. The two of them went racing for the cliffs. Seconds later Nora reached Ruby, who had to dart aside to narrowly avoid being smashed into the ground.

Fighting Nora had never been fun. Ruby didn’t appreciate losing the range advantage she usually had against everyone else with her scythe, especially now that Nora was currently trying to take her head off, swinging her hammer with both hands like a baseball bat. She blocked Nora’s first few hits with the shaft of her scythe and then regretted it when she felt the force of the impact reverberate through her entire body. 

After dodging and jumping around for a bit, Ruby finally got past Nora’s defenses for once and managed to trip her up, knocking her over into the sand. With the precious few seconds she’d just earned Ruby glanced over to see what Blake and Yang were doing. They’d made it all the way to the top of the nearest cliff at this point, and were standing close together near the edge. Blake was busy tying the ribbon of her weapon around Yang’s midsection. They both looked like they really wanted to kiss right then and there, grinning so hard at each other that Ruby could tell even from this distance.

Then it clicked in her head what they were actually trying to do.

She turned back just in time for Nora to swing wildly upwards with her hammer and sock her with it directly underneath her jaw.

The angle of the hit made it so that Ruby didn’t go airborne, but she felt her head snap back violently as a result. The pain set in a few seconds later. She covered her mouth with one hand, stabbing Crescent Rose into the ground with the other to balance against while she tried to reorient herself. The hit had been strong enough that even Nora herself was lowering her weapon, looking at Ruby in concern.

“Oh man,” she was saying. “Are you okay?”

Ruby just nodded frantically, trying to blink the spots out of her vision. With the hand she wasn’t using to clutch her face she fumbled to fold her scythe up into its rifle form, and then shot Nora in the chest with it. At this close range Nora couldn’t dodge in time, and the sniper round took out a good chunk of her Aura, as well as whatever was left of her friendly concern.

“So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” she said, grinning. Ruby took off sprinting without answering her.

Yang and Blake saw her approaching and began to get into position. Blake wrapped the other end of the ribbon around her hand. Ruby turned and started running backwards, firing stray shots off at Nora to keep her attention away from the others while she focused on blocking them.

When they reached the base of the cliffs Ruby maneuvered them both around, pressing even harder on the offense until Nora was backing up against it. Moments later, she watched from out of the corner of her eye as Yang began running away from Blake, along the edge of the cliffside until the ribbon tied around her stomach was nearly taut. Then she turned around to face Blake right before leaping off, and came swinging down towards Ruby and Nora like a glorious fiery pendulum.

Ruby ducked under one of Nora’s attacks and then rolled aside just as Blake let go of the ribbon. Nora couldn’t move away fast enough. Yang crashed into her feet first with enough force to send her flying. She landed a good distance away, and when her back hit the ground, the buzzer sounded. Nora was out.

Yang hopped back up to her feet, dusting her hands off, and flashed Ruby a grin and a thumbs up. Ruby was thrilled. They’d really managed to do it—the fight was now a four on one against Pyrrha. The plan had worked. Ruby glanced up at the scoreboard and saw that Weiss’s Aura level was getting alarmingly close to the cutoff, but Pyrrha still had nearly three-fourths of hers left. Blake was also starting to dip into the danger zone, while Ruby and Yang were both somewhere between a third and a half. But it was still four people against one. They could totally do this.

Ruby looked up at Blake, who was still standing atop the cliff. She was just getting ready to call her down and regroup when a gunshot rang out across the arena. An instant later the bullet exploded in Blake’s face, and she was abruptly knocked backwards and out of sight. The buzzer sounded again.

“Did you just shoot Blake in the _face_?” Weiss shouted.

“I’m so sorry!” Pyrrha cried.

Ruby frantically scanned the top of the cliff. Blake wasn’t getting up. She was torn between rushing to help Weiss, who was definitely starting to get soundly beaten back by Pyrrha at this point, or going up the cliffs to make sure Blake was okay. Yang seemed to be having the same dilemma. 

“Go, you dummies!” Nora called out to them. Ruby turned to find her struggling to pull herself back to her feet. “I’ll go check up on her. Go!”

So Ruby shared a glance with Yang, and then together, the two of them took off, charging in the direction of Weiss and Pyrrha with their weapons ready.

Weiss did not look like she was having a good time. Her movements were clearly getting sloppy, and Pyrrha’s subtle semblance usage only worsened her already loose grip on her rapier.  All Pyrrha had to do was nudge a little harder, and Myrtenaster flew out of Weiss’s grasp completely, landing several feet away next to a lava geyser. 

In a panic, Weiss summoned a glyph under her own feet and used it to jump into the air to dodge Pyrrha’s low slash. But it had been exactly what Pyrrha wanted. While Weiss was in midair she chucked her shield over and nailed it directly into Weiss’s stomach, sending her hurtling across the arena.

Ruby folded her scythe up into its compact form and hooked it onto her back as she ran. She put on an extra burst of speed and used her semblance to dash forward, making it underneath Weiss just in time to catch her in her arms.

“Someday I’ll princess carry one of you for a change,” Weiss said once she recovered, embarrassed. “Just you wait.”

Ruby beamed at her and then set her down.

Yang, meanwhile, had gone ahead and started going toe to toe with Pyrrha. For a while they actually seemed evenly matched, trading blows so fast that Ruby had a hard time following the fight. It gave Ruby and Weiss enough time to scramble to get their weapons back and readied and then try to join in.

At first it felt like they were winning. Pyrrha was good, but so were they, and she was outnumbered three to one. Her semblance made things hell for them, but gradually, the three of them managed to whittle her Aura down bit by bit. 

But then the tables started turning.

“I hate how much stamina you have,” Yang told Pyrrha in between heaving breaths.

Pyrrha just smiled, neatly blocked one of Yang’s punches with her shield, and simultaneously jumped to kick Weiss away and block Ruby’s scythe with her weapon. In the ensuing commotion, she geared up to knock out an exhausted Yang once and for all.

Right as Pyrrha began to do the first slash, Ruby rushed forward, shoved Yang aside, and took the hit for her sister. Yang shouted something, but Ruby was too busy getting pummeled to hear what she said. Once Pyrrha started her entire chain of attacks, the muscle memory wouldn’t let her stop until she was finished. So Ruby got a slash to the neck, a jab to the stomach, an elbow to the chest, and then Pyrrha spun and brought her weapon crashing down on Ruby’s head. She crumpled to the ground as the buzzer sounded out overhead.

Then Yang jumped up and kicked Pyrrha in the side of her head with so much force that she fell over and hit the ground too.

“That’s for my sister!” she yelled, and then before Pyrrha could recover and get back up, she kicked her in the head again, even harder. Then she winced. “Okay. That might’ve been too far. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Pyrrha told her, clutching her head and groaning.

While Pyrrha was still dazed, Yang raced over to Weiss, grabbed her hand, and then took her running off together a good distance away. 

“Where are we going?” Weiss protested as they ran.

“Cannon!” Yang just shouted back.

“What does that even _mean_?”

“It means make a cannon!” Yang let go of Weiss’s hand, motioning for her to stay put while she kept going. “Hurry, before Pyrrha gets back up!”

Ruby managed to roll over onto her back, trying to will her vision to stop spinning, and glanced up at the scoreboard. If Yang and Weiss didn’t take Pyrrha out with one final hit soon, they were doomed. The noise of the crowd above was almost deafening at this point. Luckily, Weiss seemed to have finally understood what Yang had meant, and brought her hand up, summoning five giant red glyphs into the air, all in a line and pointed directly towards Pyrrha.

Then Yang readied herself, took a deep breath, and charged. She propelled herself through the glyphs with the recoil from her gauntlets, speeding up with each one she passed through until she was going so fast that she looked like a flaming blur of light.

Pyrrha sat up just in time to get full body slammed by Yang with the entire force of her semblance, amplified by Weiss’s glyphs. They both hit the ground so hard that the rocks and lava exploded into the air all around them, engulfing them in a giant plume of dust and ash. Two buzzers sounded out moments later, one after the other. With Weiss being the only one left standing, Team RWBY had won the fight.

Weiss had to sit down on the ground, exhausted, as the people in the stands burst into screams and cheers. Oobleck and Port were shouting right along with the rest of them, but Ruby was barely paying attention to what they were saying. She figured she probably would have been celebrating with her teammates, if it weren’t for the fact that they were all incapacitated in some form, scattered across the arena. So the only thing she did now was grin up at the sky above her, trying her best not to pass out.

 

* * *

 

Ruby barely processed what happened after that. All she remembered was somehow making it back to the room supported by her equally beaten up teammates. Now, hours later, she was curled up into a ball with her head in Yang’s lap, pressing her face into her shirt while groaning in pain. Her jaw was killing her.

“Yang,” she whined.

“Yeah?” said Yang, running her hand through Ruby’s hair.

“It hurts.”

“I know, Ruby.”

Ruby whined again, careful not to move her jaw too much. “Make it go away.”

“Trust me, sis. If I could I would,” said Yang, looking more amused than anything.

“I wanted to have a victory kiss with one of you,” said Ruby. She let out a huff. “It was gonna be awesome and everything. Like we’d win and then come back here and then smooch and it would have been this whole epic grand thing. But stupid Nora just had to go and bust my face and ruin my plans.”

On the other end of the bed, Weiss was trying to prop Blake up against the wall. Blake was sporting a particularly nasty looking black eye, courtesy of getting shot in the face by Pyrrha. 

“I’ll still kiss you right now,” said Blake. “My face is busted too. We’re like a matching set.”

Despite trying her best not to, Ruby still laughed. It hurt. “Stop it. You’re awful. I can’t kiss you if my jaw kills me first.”

Blake just gave her a lopsided grin. “So is that a yes or a no?”

“I can’t believe Weiss and Yang got a big romantic moment with their first kiss and you just want to smash our injured faces together instead.”

Unfortunately, before either of them could move and actually follow through with the offer, Nora chose that moment to waltz into their room, followed closely by the rest of her team.

“Hey guys!” she called out cheerfully. “Now that we’re done trying to kill each other, we can throw a party together, right? I think it’s only fair that we all celebrate—wow, what the hell did you guys do to this room?”

The four of them all looked at her.

“What, this?” said Yang, patting the combined bed they were sitting on. When Nora nodded, she just shrugged. “I dunno. We never really got around to moving everything back to where it was, so I guess this is just how things are now.”

Nora blinked. “What, are Blake and Weiss sleeping together at night or something?” she asked.

“I mean, yeah,” said Yang. “All of us are.”

“All four of you?”

“Yeah.”

Nora was looking more and more confused by the second. Behind her, Ren closed the door to the room. No one else moved. “Do you even all fit on there?” she finally settled on asking.

“Just barely,” Yang said brightly. “It’s fun! You learn pretty quick that Weiss likes to hog the blankets, though.”

“I do not!” Weiss protested indignantly.

“Yes she does,” Ruby pitched in. She rolled over to face Team JNPR, grinning. “It’s why we have to make her sleep in the middle every night.”

“It’s okay, Weiss,” said Blake, because Weiss looked like she wanted to jump out the window from sheer embarrassment. “It all works out in the end, since you’re very small and huggable. It’s nice.”

Weiss let out a petulant-sounding huff. “I swear, this whole thing is less of a relationship and more just the three of you ganging up on me and bullying me relentlessly.”

“Oh no. Weiss, I’m sorry.” Blake pulled Weiss into her arms, hugging her close and exaggerating a pout. “I meant it as a compliment. Please forgive me.”

“Why does it feel like I’m witnessing something I shouldn’t be?” Jaune asked.

“I know, right?” said Nora. “It’s like walking in on two people making out or something.” She paused. “Hey, wait a second.”

“Well, anyway,” said Yang, deftly changing the subject, “what did you guys want to do now? If it doesn’t need that much space there’s still the floor underneath Ruby’s bed.”

“That thing’s not, uh, gonna fall on us or anything, is it?” Jaune asked nervously.

“I mean, it’s almost the end of the year and Weiss is still alive, so you should be fine,” Blake told him. Weiss made a face and tried to cross her arms, but having Blake’s still wrapped around her stomach made it difficult.

Yang gently lifted Ruby’s head off her lap so she could stand up, and then immediately winced from the movement. “Jeez. That fight sure was something,” she said. “How the hell are you guys all so fine and dandy?”

“Are you kidding?” said Nora. “You knocked both Pyrrha and me out by turning into a giant flaming cannonball. We’re only pretending like we’re okay right now.”

Everyone looked at Pyrrha. She just shrugged in agreement, grinning sheepishly.

The eight of them settled onto the ground underneath Ruby’s bed, making a loose circle on the carpet. Nora had brought several decks of cards with her and proudly told them all that she’d come up with a new card game they could all play together. It was so convoluted that it took her an hour to explain the rules well enough that everyone understood, and then they only managed to play it for half an hour at most before the room descended into the usual yelling and screaming and chaos. 

Ruby didn’t talk much for once, happy to sit back and watch everybody else start picking verbal fights with each other. Part of it was because her jaw was still killing her, but part of her just wanted to sit there and enjoy the moment with all of her friends. Blake caught her eye from across the circle and blew her a kiss. It made her smile, content.

 

* * *

 

A few days later and Ruby was sitting in her own bunk for once, reading a book.

Or at least, she was trying to. Even with the blanket thrown over the top, she could still hear the muted scuffling sounds coming from outside. She knew Yang and Blake were both in the room as well, just not what they were doing that was making so much noise. The fact that they weren’t talking at all just made it even weirder.

Frustrated, Ruby finally lifted up the blanket and poked her head outside. “What the heck are you two doing out here?” she asked.

Over by the foot of the combined bed, Yang had Blake pinned to the carpet, her arms on either side of Blake’s head. Ruby let out a loud sigh.

“Uh, practicing?” said Yang. She wasn’t moving. Blake didn’t seem to mind. “For the finals next week. Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Ruby, raising an eyebrow. “That looks like some very intense and productive practicing right there.”

“We were wrestling,” Blake said helpfully.

“Now I just have even more questions.” Ruby shifted until her legs were dangling off the edge of the bed, closing her book shut. “But most importantly, have either of you seen Weiss recently?”

There was a pause as Yang considered it. “Huh. No, I haven’t. Weird.”

“I saw her leave the room maybe an hour ago,” said Blake. “Didn’t say where she was going, though.”

Ruby thought about that for a bit, kicking her legs back and forth a little. “Do you think one hour is long enough to justify going to look for her?” she asked.

“I mean, sure,” Yang said reasonably. “Since none of us know where she actually ran off to.”

“Okay.” Ruby set her book down, hopped down from her bunk, and started to head towards the door. “You guys wanna come with or are you gonna be too busy making out?”

Yang and Blake looked at each other.

“She’s considering it,” said Blake.

“Maybe I am,” Yang responded with a slight grin, but it faded quickly. “No, seriously though. She probably has her reasons for disappearing without telling any of us. If we all bombard her at once it might be overwhelming.”

“Let us know if she’s okay,” Blake said to Ruby.

“Of course,” said Ruby.

And with that, she left the room in search of Weiss.

It took her a while. She combed her way through the library, the mess hall, and the gardens before she ended up finding Weiss sitting alone at a picnic table on the Vytal Festival fairgrounds. Now that it was halfway through autumn and the temperatures were getting chilly, there weren’t as many people hanging out on the fairgrounds anymore, but the vendors would stay open until the tournament was over. 

Ruby tried to make her steps as noisy as possible when she approached. It still didn’t work. Weiss didn’t notice her until she had opened her mouth to speak.

“Hey,” said Ruby.

Weiss jumped in her seat and spun around. “Oh!” she said, before realizing who was standing before her and forcing herself to calm down. “Oh. Hello, Ruby.”

Her scroll was lying on the table in front of her. When Ruby glanced over at the screen it lit up, revealing a long list of missed calls from Weiss’s father. She frowned.

“You gonna be okay?” she asked.

Weiss sighed and turned back to face the table again. Ruby sat down next to her. “I think so. I just need some time,” she said. Her face twisted into a scowl, looking down at her blinking scroll. “I _am_ going to have to talk to him eventually, though.”

“What do you think he wants to say to you?” Ruby said cautiously.

If it was even possible, Weiss’s expression just soured even further. “I don’t know. Whatever it is, though, it can’t be good. The whole mine fiasco has been hell on the company’s reputation recently, and I don’t think he likes that I was in the thick of it when it all happened.”

For a while the two of them just sat there together, feeling the autumn breeze blow through the mostly empty fairgrounds. Ruby tried to wrack her brain for something to say to make Weiss feel better.

“Sorry. I don’t really know what to say.” Ruby kept her gaze fixed on the table. “I think sometimes I forget that you’re like, way above us. Not in a weird way or anything. Just… me and Yang, we just want to be huntresses. Blake too. But you’re going to be taking over one of the biggest companies on Remnant someday. That’s a crazy amount of expectations riding on your shoulders.”

“Yeah,” Weiss said slowly. “Ever since I came to Beacon, I think sometimes I forget too. I honestly like it better that way. Maybe that makes me selfish. But here, I don’t have to be Weiss Schnee, the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. I can just be Weiss, the girl who’s in love with her three teammates.” She frowned at her scroll again. “Unfortunately, certain people in my life seem hellbent on reminding me otherwise.”

Ruby scooted over until she was pressed right up against Weiss, putting her arm around her shoulders. “You can talk to me,” she said, trying her best to sound gentle. “I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I’m always down to listen.”

“Thank you, Ruby. I mean it.” Weiss managed to smile at her, before looking back down at the table. “It’s—well. I don’t know. You’re going to think it’s ridiculous.”

Ruby leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Try me,” she said.

“Alright,” Weiss said, her voice uncertain. She took a deep breath before speaking again. “I guess I just—I sort of feel like I should have known better. All of this stuff has been happening for years right under my nose, and I just blindly believed everything my father told me instead, even though I knew from an early age that he wasn’t a very good person.”

Weiss’s entire body had tensed up at this point. Ruby pressed her hand in between Weiss’s shoulder blades, rubbing in gentle circles in an attempt to coax her to relax, waiting patiently for her to gather her thoughts.

“I don’t know,” she finally continued. “Part of me just feels like I deserve to feel bad, in a way. So many Faunus have been suffering down in the mines for ages because I was too stupid and dense to realize that they were.”

“Well,” Ruby said eventually, “I’m not going to say you’re ridiculous.”

“But?” said Weiss.

“I _am_ gonna call you a sillyhead.”

Weiss laughed a little. “I suppose I deserve that.”

“No, seriously,” Ruby insisted. “Like, unless you’re planning on telling me that you’re personally responsible for the crappy conditions in the mines, I think I’m going to continue to believe that you’re not at fault for any of this.”

“Ruby—”

“You were just a kid, Weiss,” said Ruby. “You’re always so hard on yourself. It’s not fair to pin the blame of an entire company’s action on yourself like that. You know that, right?”

“It’s still a company that I’m going to inherit one day,” Weiss tried to argue, but it sounded half-hearted.

“Have you inherited it yet?” Ruby asked pointedly.

Weiss let out a sigh. “No,” she admitted. After a few moments, her expression hardened. “But once I do, I’m going to tear down everything it stands for and build it back up my way. The right way.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Ruby.

“Thanks, Ruby,” said Weiss. The tension was slowly starting to drain out of her body, and she slumped against Ruby, resting her head on Ruby’s shoulder. “I think I really needed that.”

“I’m always here for you,” Ruby told her. “And so are Yang and Blake, but you know that. If you’d let me cart you back to the dorm now I can get them to tell you that you’re silly, too. And that you’re strong, and awesome, and we all really, really admire you.” She gently lifted Weiss’s head up so she could press another kiss to her forehead. “You’re nothing like your dad, Weiss. You’re so much better. Please believe that.”

“When you look at me like that, I’m not sure I could do anything else,” said Weiss, her voice so quiet that Ruby almost didn’t hear her.

Ruby wasn’t sure how much time passed after that, because she had suddenly found it very difficult to breathe. She was so distracted that she didn’t even notice Yang and Blake approaching until after they’d popped in together, sandwiching Ruby and Weiss in between them when they sat down at the picnic table.

“Hey guys,” said Yang. “What’s up?”

“Oh hey!” Ruby said, once she’d managed to snap herself out of her daze. “What are you two doing out here? I thought you said you’d be too busy making out to come with me.”

“Nah, we decided against it,” said Yang.

“Didn’t want to until we knew Weiss was okay,” Blake added.

That just made Weiss bury her face in her hands, embarrassed. “I’m alright now,” she said without looking up at any of them. “You don’t have to keep yourselves in check just for me.”

“Hey, well now we’re out in public,” Yang said, grinning. “That’d just be rude.”

“Did Ruby already finish giving you the whole you’re-being-too-hard-yourself speech?” Blake asked Weiss, nudging her in the side.

“What—how would you know anything about that?” said Weiss, surprised.

“Because I know you,” Blake answered simply.

“Yeah, sorry Blake,” said Ruby. “I just finished telling her off.”

“Darn.” Blake was trying her best to sound disappointed, but the amused smile on her face wasn’t helping matters in the slightest. “I wanted to tell Weiss all about how much I care about her.”

“I mean, that doesn’t have to stop you,” said Ruby.

“Wait, I have an idea,” Yang suddenly said. “Do you guys know that penis game?”

The look on Weiss’s face was priceless. “Do we know the _what_ now, Yang?”

“The penis game,” Yang explained with a grin. “You know, that game you play with your friends where you all take turns saying the word penis, and you have to get louder each time. Whoever says it the loudest wins.” When Weiss’s expression only darkened further, she shook her head, trying not to laugh. “Wait, that’s not where I was going with this. I was gonna suggest that we play the game, but instead of saying penis, we have to shout ‘Weiss Schnee is the best’ instead.”

“What a great idea,” said Blake, amused, while Weiss went right back to covering her face with her hands.

“I know, right?” Yang said cheerfully. “I’m just full of them. Alright, I’m going first.” She scrambled up and onto the table, towering above all of them and bringing her cupped hands up to her mouth.

“Oh god,” said Weiss.

Then Yang took a deep breath and shouted at the top of her lungs. “Weiss Schnee is the fucking _best_!”

Blake was laughing. Weiss had flopped onto the table at this point, her face pressed into the surface in an attempt to escape her mortification. The few people who were hanging around the fairgrounds had all turned to stare at them. Ruby grabbed at Yang’s ankle, annoyed.

“You butthead,” she said, trying to tug Yang off of the table. “You’re supposed to start off way quieter, how the heck are the rest of us supposed to beat that?”

“Hey, I play to win,” Yang told her, grinning.

“Fine.” Ruby let out a huff and stood up as well, getting onto the table and then hopping on Yang’s back. Then she raised her voice, trying to be as loud as possible. “I would do anything for Weiss Schnee!”

“So would I, Ruby!” Yang yelled back. “You’re not special!”

“Yang Xiao Long can go fall into a dumpster!”

Yang laughed at that. “I mean, sure,” she said, going back to a normal speaking volume. She craned her neck to smile up at Ruby. “But you’re on my back right now. You’d fall into the dumpster with me too.”

“No. Absolutely not,” Weiss told them, finally having regained her ability to speak coherently. “No one is falling into a dumpster today. Both of you get down here right now.”

So Ruby slid off Yang’s back and the two of them got off the table and sat back down next to Weiss. While they’d been having their pissing contest, Blake had gone ahead and taken Weiss’s hand in her own, rubbing circles over the back of her hand. After the excitement of the situation had passed, all of the fight slowly went out of Weiss. She sighed.

“God,” she said. “If you guys are going to keep insisting on being so sweet, I’m going to die of cardiac arrest before I can even take over the company.”

“What a way to go, though,” said Yang. “Death by overwhelming love and support.”

“Yeah,” said Weiss. She paused for a second, looking almost shy, before glancing over at Ruby. “Hey, Ruby?”

“Yeah?”

“Does your jaw still hurt?”

Ruby opened and closed her mouth a few times as a test. “No, not really,” she said. “Why?”

“Would you happen to still be offering that victory kiss you promised?” Weiss asked.

“Oh!” Ruby felt strangely jittery all of a sudden. “Yeah! Sure! I’m—I’m gonna, well, not look at Yang for one, because I know she’s laughing at me right now.”

“I am doing no such thing,” said Yang, except it definitely sounded like she was struggling hard not to laugh.

Ruby just made a face and stood up, pulling Weiss along with her by the wrist. She glanced over at Blake. “Are you okay with this?” she asked.

“Hm,” said Blake, considering it for a moment, a faint smile on her face. “Can I get a victory kiss sometime in the future, too?”

Ruby saluted her. “You got it.” 

“Then go for it,” said Blake.

Ruby beamed at her and tugged on Weiss’s wrist. “Come on, let’s go!”

She took off running for the dorms, pulling Weiss along with her and not even bothering to wait up for Yang and Blake to catch up to them. Soon enough they had made it up the stairs and through the hallways, and then Ruby unlocked the door to their room, dragged them both in, and closed it shut behind them.

The nerves hit her all at once, quickly replacing the anticipation that had been buzzing through her just moments ago with apprehension.

“Hi,” Ruby said into the silence of the room.

“Hello,” said Weiss, looking equally as nervous.

“So,” said Ruby. “About that kiss.”

“Yeah,” said Weiss.

They stood there facing each other for a while longer.

“Okay, I’m gonna just do it,” Ruby blurted out, and then she grabbed Weiss by the front of her shirt and tugged her into a kiss. Weiss reciprocated almost immediately, and the tension in the room vanished. 

Ruby got so lost in the feeling of kissing Weiss that she barely realized that they were moving backwards until her back hit the door. She brought her arms up to wrap around Weiss’s neck while Weiss’s hands went to her waist. It took a colossal effort for her to pull away, laughing slightly.

“Weiss,” she said. “I—not that I’m not really enjoying this, but Yang and Blake are going to come back any moment now and knock us on our butts.”

“I know,” was all Weiss said in response, her eyes fixed on Ruby’s mouth.

Almost as if on cue, Ruby felt the door begin to swing open behind her. She rushed to shove Weiss forward before either of them could get beaned in the head by it.

“Seriously?” came Yang’s voice. “There’s a thousand different places you two could have chosen in this room to make out, and you picked the doorway?”

“We, uh, we got excited?” Ruby said sheepishly.

“I can tell.” Yang headed past them into the room, grinning at them as she sat down on the combined bed. “Don’t get too aggressive now.”

“Aw, let them do what they want,” Blake said, closing the door shut before following Yang to the bed. “They’re young and in love. It’s a special time for them.”

“Ew,” said Ruby, while Yang laughed.

Weiss was still looking at her mouth, so Ruby leaned in and kissed her again. It was nice. It felt really, really nice. Ruby wondered if kissing Blake would feel this good, too.

Then her happy little haze was interrupted when she heard more scuffling noises coming from over by the bed. It took her out hard enough that she had to break the kiss again.

“Are you guys seriously wrestling _again_?” Ruby said.

In one swift motion Blake knocked Yang’s feet out from underneath her and then dropped down on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

“What?” said Yang once she got her bearings back, looking over at Ruby. “Would you rather we stare at you and watch you guys kiss each other instead?”

“I would rather you two stop being absolute weirdos,” said Ruby.

Weiss started laughing. She pressed her face into Ruby’s shoulder, while Ruby looked on, bewildered.

“Sorry,” Weiss said. It felt so good to see her smiling again. “I just—I’m just so happy. You’re all completely ridiculous, but I’d never give any of you up for anything.”

“Aw, Weiss,” said Ruby, pulling her into a big hug. Soon after Blake helped Yang get back to her feet so that they could walk over and join in as well. “Trust me, we all feel the same way.”

It was cramped, having all four of them squished together in a hug up against the doorway, but no one seemed to mind. They just stood there holding each other for a while.

And Ruby thought she’d never been more content.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaugh someone yell at me to write faster again

One night Blake awoke with a gasp.

She flinched reflexively while trying to pull herself back to consciousness, which ended up jerking Ruby forward along with her. Ruby mumbled something incoherent, jolted halfway awake, and after a few seconds burrowed further into Blake’s arms.

“You good?” she asked sleepily.

“Sorry,” Blake said back. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay.” Ruby shifted a bit more, then blinked open her eyes just a tiny bit to look up at Blake. “Nightmare?”

Blake sighed. “Yeah,” she said.

She tried to steady her breathing, focusing on her surroundings in an attempt to calm herself down. Tonight she was sleeping on the end, with her and Yang spooning Ruby and Weiss in between them. Moonlight filtered in through the window. Yang was snoring, as usual. The steady, familiar sound coupled with Ruby running her hand up and down her back helped to gradually soothe her.

“Want to talk about it?” Ruby asked, keeping her voice low so as not to wake Weiss and Yang.

“I don’t want to worry you,” said Blake.

Ruby smiled at her. “I’m the team leader,” she said. “It’s kind of my job to be worried over you.”

“Well alright, if you insist.” Blake managed a small smile as well, and then slowly pushed the covers off of herself and sat up, rubbing at her eyes. Ruby got up shortly after and bunched up the blankets into a giant pile on top of Weiss, who just frowned in her sleep in response.

They both scooted to the edge of the bed, sitting close together. Blake brought her arm up to rest around Ruby’s shoulders, and Ruby curled into her side with a happy little sigh.

“So,” Ruby began after a while. “What’s on your mind?”

Blake kept her gaze fixed on the ground, absently letting Ruby take her free hand and lace their fingers together. “I think you can guess by now, can’t you?” she said with a weak laugh.

“Yeah,” said Ruby. “The Faunus in the mines?”

“It just feels so—well, I don’t know,” said Blake. “Like we went all the way over there and saw some truly awful things and then came back, and life at Beacon just continues on as if it didn’t happen.” She glanced over at Ruby and sighed. “Do you ever get that feeling?”

“I think so,” said Ruby. “I think I get that. Cause a couple weeks ago we really almost died in that Grimm attack in the mine, but now the most pressing thing on my mind is whether or not we can beat Team SSSN in the tournament finals.”

Despite everything, Blake smiled at that. “Yeah. Basically.”

“Well, there’s still the people protesting, isn’t there?” Ruby said tentatively. “So it’s not like anyone’s letting the SDC try to sweep this whole thing under the rug.”

“Yeah, and that’s great,” said Blake, torn. “But _I_ want to do something, too. I hate just sitting here all nice and safe while other Faunus are out there fighting for their rights. There has to be something I can do to help.”

“You could try getting an interview?” Ruby suggested. “There’s probably tons of news outlets who would jump at the opportunity to hear you talk, and I know the only reason why they haven’t is because Ozpin and the school are trying to give us some privacy. But if you went out looking for one maybe you could get something out there.”

“Huh,” said Blake, considering it for a few seconds. “Yeah, maybe that could work. I’ll have to think about it more.” She glanced over at Ruby and smiled. “Thank you, Ruby.”

“You know I’m always happy to help however I can,” Ruby said back, beaming.

They fell into a peaceful silence for a bit. Blake took the time to shamelessly stare at Ruby, marveling at how lucky she was to have gotten the chance to meet and befriend such a wonderful person. Ruby was busy playing with Blake’s hand with her thumb.

“Does it ever feel weird?” Blake asked. “Being the one to give the rest of us advice and help us through our problems despite being two years younger?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” said Ruby. She laughed a little. “It was harder at the beginning. But you guys have come to accept me as the leader. You don’t treat me like I’m younger. And that helps a lot, I think.” 

“You’re amazing,” said Blake.

Ruby smiled and bumped her head against Blake’s shoulder. “You are too, sillyhead.”

Before Blake could come up with a response that didn’t make it obvious her brain had just short-circuited, she felt something tugging at the back of her shirt.

“Come back to bed, you two,” Weiss grumbled with her eyes still closed. “You’re being so loud.”

“Yang is literally snoring in your ear right now,” Ruby pointed out.

“Yang’s always snoring, though,” said Weiss. She kept pulling on Blake’s shirt, her other hand blindly searching for Ruby’s. “Come sleep. Please?”

“Aw, okay Weiss,” Ruby said with an affectionate smile. She turned around and leaned down so she could drop a quick, gentle kiss to Weiss’s lips. 

“What?” said Blake, smiling as she watched them. “Do I get a kiss too?”

“Do you want one?” asked Ruby.

“What kind of silly question is that?” said Blake. “Of course I’d l—”

Her words were abruptly cut off when Ruby leaned up and kissed her, not even bothering to try and hide her grin.

Whatever remaining bits of sleep that were still fogging her brain up disappeared instantly. Blake suddenly became hyper aware of everywhere Ruby was touching her, with a hand resting on her leg and the other on her waist. Ruby was still grinning through the kiss, and it was taking Blake all of her willpower to keep from laughing in happiness.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed until they broke apart. All she knew was that her night had just gone from pretty rough to pretty amazing.

“Ah, man, we’re doing this all out of order, aren’t we?” said Ruby.

Blake just looked at her, still a bit dazed by the kiss. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, I’m not an expert on dating or anything,” Ruby explained with a grin, “but there’s an order that you’re supposed to follow or something, right?” Like, you ask someone out, then you take them on dates, then you kiss them, then you move in together, and then you get married. I think. Right? But we totally skipped right to the kissing.”

“I mean, _technically_ we already moved in with each other on the second day of school,” said Blake. “So based on that list we’ve been doing stuff out of order from the very start.”

Ruby laughed. “Oh yeah, you’re right.”

“If it makes you feel better, though, I’ll take you on a date. Once the tournament’s finally over.” Blake smiled at Ruby, reaching up to brush aside a bit of her hair. “I promise.”

The look on Ruby’s face just made Blake want to kiss her again.

“This is not called sleeping,” Weiss said from behind them.

“Oh, oops,” said Ruby. “Sorry, Weiss.” She didn’t sound apologetic in the slightest.

“We were having a moment,” said Blake, amused.

“And I’m very happy for you two, I swear,” Weiss mumbled. Her eyes were still closed, and she was pouting a little. It was adorable. “But you’re both so loud.”

“I am the quietest person on this team,” said Blake, pretending to be offended.

“Not when you’re around Ruby or Yang you’re not.”

They all heard the shifting behind Weiss. A few moments later, Yang spoke.

“Somebody say my name?” she asked, still clearly half-asleep.

“Oh, no,” said Weiss. “We managed to wake Yang up.”

“An impressive feat,” Yang agreed. She shifted again, readjusting her grip around Weiss’s stomach. “Are you guys making out without me?”

Ruby and Blake looked at each other.

“Possibly?” said Ruby.

“Nice.” Yang blinked open one eye and then closed it shut again. “Now come back to sleep, you noisy people. Also, why are all the blankets piled up on top of Weiss?”

“Because Blake and Ruby are jerks,” said Weiss.

Blake just laughed and pulled Ruby back down until they were lying down together again next to Weiss and Yang.

“Thank you,” she said as they settled back in, completely sincere.

“You don’t have to keep thanking me,” Ruby said with a laugh. “I’m happy if you’re happy. Cross my heart.”

She scooted closer to Blake, curling up against her front, and it was warm and comfortable for a while. At least until Weiss let out a tiny little whine and they had to shift towards her so she could hold Blake’s hand, resting her arm over Ruby in the process.

Blake slept soundly after that.

 

* * *

 

The days leading up to the finals match were interesting, to say the least. Now that the two last competing teams were set in stone, the rest of the students had started to take sides, in the loudest and most dramatic ways possible. Beacon Academy had basically turned into a warzone.

Some of the Haven kids had scrounged together four massive posters of the members of Team SSSN and hung them up in the hallways. They were super eye-catching, especially with the words “SSSN’S OUT, GUNS OUT” printed in bold text at the bottom of the posters, and people cheered whenever one of the boys showed up walking past them. Sun and his teammates seemed to enjoy the attention immensely, waving or fist pumping at the onlookers.

But then, in retaliation, someone else at Beacon had managed to get their hands on the pictures of Team RWBY that were taken for the initiation process and turn _those_ into posters. Now Blake was subjected to the same treatment as she passed by a giant picture of herself in the hallways on her way to the library, with people whooping and applauding her along the way. She just smiled, lifted her hand a little, and kept walking. 

It was pretty funny, though, that no one seemed to be able to agree on a catchphrase for them. The crossed out phrases at the bottom ranged from “SPARKLE LIKE A RWBY” to “GIRLS RULE BOYS DROOL” to even stuff like “RWBY’S OUT, BOOBIES OUT” which had gotten shut down by Professor Goodwitch pretty quick. Currently the reigning text read “RWBY KICKS YOUR BOOTY” in bright yellow paint, one word for each person. Yang would probably find it hilarious that she’d gotten the word “BOOTY” written on her poster.

But Blake had other things to worry about at the moment. She continued on to the library without much more incident. Once inside, she headed towards the rows of public computers and booted one up, ready to sit down and get to work.

Hours must have passed after that. Blake barely noticed the time flying by and didn’t even realize her shoulders were starting to cramp up when someone came up behind her, pushing against her back in an attempt to coax her up into a better sitting position.

“Honestly,” said Weiss, her palm sending warmth jolting up Blake’s spine, “your posture is terrible. You really should be more careful about it.”

“Sorry,” said Blake. She tilted her head back so she could glance up at Weiss. Yang was standing next to her too, looking amused. After a few seconds Weiss’s expression softened, and Blake found that she couldn’t stop staring.

“What have you been up to?” Weiss asked her.

Blake turned back to face the computer monitor, letting Yang drape her arms over her front. “Um, just checking recent news and stuff.” She made a face. “The Schnee Dust Company has been responding to the backlash by… well, they’re not exactly responding to it. They’re just deflecting by trying to put all the emphasis and media attention on the fact that the White Fang had been there instead.”

“Sounds exactly like something the company would do,” Weiss said bitterly.  

“Yeah,” said Blake. “Why are you two here, by the way? Did you need me for something?”

“Nah, we just wanted to check up on you,” said Yang. “Ruby went down to Vale with Jaune to grab some supplies, so you’re stuck with us for the rest of the afternoon.”

“You make that sound like a bad thing.” Blake sighed and leaned back against Yang’s stomach, closing her eyes and relaxing for a second. “I’m probably not going to be very fun to hang out with at the moment, though.”

“No, this is good,” said Weiss. “I have a couple thoughts about this whole situation too that I’d like to share, too.”

Blake looked up at Weiss, curious. Weiss just stared at the computer monitor, steeling herself before continuing.

“I did some digging around,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of access to the company’s inner workings, but from what I could find, my father wasn’t lying to me when he said he paid the Faunus workers equal wages as the humans.”

“That can’t be right,” said Blake.

“Well, it is,” Weiss insisted. “I left the files back in the dorm, but I promise you I’m telling the truth. That’s not where the problem lies, anyway. The thing is, all of the Faunus workers are relegated to the jobs that put them in the deepest parts of the mine, the most dangerous areas. The conditions down there are by far the worst. I checked the spreadsheets, and so little money goes into providing security or support for them. They’re basically treated as easily expendable resources.”

“So what you’re saying,” said Yang, “is that the Faunus get killed off the fastest. And then replaced the fastest.”

Blake clenched her jaw.

“Yes,” said Weiss, sounding equally as repulsed as Blake felt. “Technically there isn’t anything we can do about it, since as Huntsmen in training this is out of our jurisdiction. But there _is_ something else that we can focus on to tip it in our favor. Because you know what else happens in deep, dark caves when the conditions are terrible and the workers are always miserable?”

“Frequent Grimm attacks,” said Blake. She was starting to see where Weiss was going with this.

“If I can gather enough evidence to prove that the company’s worker policies are in fact causing an unnaturally high amount of fatal Grimm attacks in the mines, we could actually do something substantial about it,” Weiss said, her expression hard. “We’re going to be Huntsmen, and it’s our job to protect _everyone_ from the creatures of Grimm. No one can deny us that. Not even my wretch of a father.”

Blake reached over and took Weiss’s hand. The angle made it a little awkward, but Weiss looked like she needed the support. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s really good. We’re making progress. You could put the attention back on the company, and I can help take it off the White Fang.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to get interviewed tomorrow. They want to know more about our experience in the mine, among other things. I’m going to out myself as a Faunus and tell what I can about all of the discrimination and hate.”

“That’s very admirable of you,” Weiss said with a small smile. “When did this even happen?”

“Just recently,” Blake told her. “Ruby was actually the one who suggested an interview.” She glanced up at Yang. “What do you think?”

Yang just shrugged a little nervously. “Sorry. I think I’m out of my depth here,” she said. “But I’m always going to back whatever decisions you guys make. If you want to reveal yourself as a Faunus, I’ll support you however I can, just let me know how. Do you need a ride to the interview place?”

“That would be great.” Blake smiled up at Yang. “Thank you.”

Yang leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Whatever you need,” she said, the sincerity clear in her voice. Then she stood back up, pulling Blake’s chair along with her. “Speaking of which, did you forget to eat lunch again today?”

“Maybe,” Blake said guiltily.

“Then what you need right now is a nice hot meal,” said Yang, grinning as she helped Blake get back up to her feet. “Come on, I’ll make you something good. Ruby and Jaune should be back soon, I told them to grab some groceries while they were out.”

So Blake shut off the computer and the three of them left the library together. Weiss was still holding her hand, and kept holding it the entire way back to the dorms.

“We can do this,” Blake said, just as much for herself as for the others.

“Yeah,” Weiss agreed quietly. “We can do this. Together.”

 

* * *

 

“‘Ultimately, the main problem isn’t that the White Fang exists,’” Sun read aloud in a dramatic voice, grinning while holding his scroll up at eye level. Blake put her head in her arms and groaned. “‘Most of the Faunus that make up the bulk of the organization are very young and impressionable. They’ve been pushed so far, so harshly through discrimination and hate that they believe that the only option left is to join the White Fang and fight all of this violence with more violence. It’s not the right answer—of course it’s not, but something I wish all humans would understand is that it’s so, so hard to see that when you spend your entire life having the notion that you’ll forever be inferior drilled into your head, and then grow up relentlessly judged and bullied for it for no good reason.’”

“Are you done yet?” Blake asked him.

They were sitting side by side outside at a table on the fairgrounds. Blake’s interview had been published in the news earlier that morning, and the second Sun had finished reading it he’d dragged her out here to bother her about it.

“Holy crap, Blake,” he said, clearly impressed. “Everything you said in this entire article is so good! Have you ever considered becoming a public speaker? I think you’d totally kill it.”

“Have I—what? No,” said Blake. She lifted her head again to look at Sun. “I just might have gotten a little passionate towards the end there, but—”

“No, seriously, this is amazing,” Sun insisted. “Passionate is good. It makes your words feel way more genuine. Like, this part right here?” He picked up his scroll again, scrolling until he reached the bottom of the article. “‘I won’t say that the Faunus of the White Fang are innocent in all of this, because that’s just not true, but everyone needs to know that both sides have to share the blame here. And that this problem won’t be solved until we can learn to work together to fix it.’ Just damn, Blake. Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

“I’m, um, I’m not sure,” said Blake, confused. “I think I looked up to my parents a lot as a kid?”

Sun must have noticed her slight discomfort, because he immediately changed the subject. “Ah, whatever. This is awesome, Blake! You’re like a hero now.” He thought about it for a moment. “Uh, not saying that you weren’t a hero already. Anyway, you gotta tell me! How’s it feel?”

“Well, my ears are a lot less constrained and sore now,” said Blake.

It took Sun a moment to process her answer. Then he laughed and shoved her. “Not what I meant,” he said, but he glanced up at her exposed cat ears anyway.

“I know,” Blake said, grinning. “Real answer, though? It feels like everything should be different. But besides a couple of looks I’ve gotten in the hallways, nothing has really changed. It’s… surprising, I guess.”

“I still stand by what I said.” Sun clicked his scroll shut, pocketed it, and then brought his hands up to rest behind his head. “I think you look better without the bow.”

“Thanks,” said Blake.

“You’re welcome,” Sun said pleasantly. “You still seem nervous, though.”

“I feel like I’m in a ticking time bomb of a situation,” Blake admitted. “Everything’s fine and dandy now, sure, but it feels like things are going to explode in my face soon if I let my guard down.” She sighed. Sun patted her back supportively. “I think I’m just being paranoid.”

“I mean, that’s understandable,” said Sun. “But worrying over it won’t do you any good. Come on, let’s talk about happier things to take your mind off of it.”

“Like what?”

“Like your love life!”

“No,” said Blake. “Absolutely not.”

“Please?” said Sun. “I’ll tell you all about mine if you tell me about yours!”

“You mean you’ll tell me all about your nonexistent love life?”

“Ow,” said Sun. “No mercy, I see.”

“Why do you even want to know about my love life anyway?” Blake asked.

“I just want to know what the hell’s going on in it, okay?” said Sun. “Cause I swear last time I checked you totally had the hots for Yang and that’s why you turned me down, but then Weiss came to me and basically admitted she had the hots for _you_ , but then she went on a date with Yang and actually seemed happy about it, and neither of them seem like people who would settle for a rebound. And you’re clearly not depressed, either, so either you’re okay with those two dating or you’re just a being that’s incapable of feeling emotions. I haven’t ruled that one out yet.”

“How long have you been waiting to ask me this?” said Blake, amused.

“A very long time,” Sun told her very seriously. “Me and my team have been arguing about it for ages. Please tell us what’s going on, it’s driving us insane.”

Blake wasn’t sure why she found that so funny, but she did. She tried to hold in her laughter since Sun looked genuinely confused. “You know, there’s one pretty obvious answer that’s flying over your head right now,” she said.

“Wait, what is it?” said Sun. He thought about it for a moment, frowning in concentration. “Don’t tell me you’re dating Ruby instead.”

“I—what,” said Blake, bewildered. “Okay, how did you even come to that conclusion?”

“I dunno,” Sun told her. “I panicked?”

Blake finally lost her internal battle and started laughing, feeling more at ease than earlier despite the incessant prodding into her personal life. “Sun,” she said, a hint of nervousness creeping into her voice, “what if I told you that you were right? But only partially. Because… I’m dating all three of them. Ruby, Weiss, _and_ Yang.”

Sun’s jaw dropped open.

Then he stared.

“Wait, no,” he eventually said. “In hindsight, I totally should have seen that coming. Uh, are they all dating each other too?”

“Yeah,” said Blake.

“Of course, of course,” said Sun. He threw his hands up into the air. “You four are always all over each other. Of course. It all makes sense now.”

“You don’t think it’s weird?” Blake asked, feeling oddly relieved all of a sudden.

“Pfft. Nah,” said Sun. “Just wasn’t expecting it. Although I completely understand why you rejected me now. I had to compete with not just one, or even two, but _three_ smoking hot chicks for your love. I never stood a chance.”

“Sun, I do like you,” said Blake, frowning. “Just… not in the way you want me to.”

“It’s okay.” Sun put a hand on her shoulder. Somehow, he always made it feel comforting, never intrusive. “I’m over it now.” Then he brightened up. “Besides, I’m not sure I could handle a long-distance relationship for at least four whole years. Like, yeah, we’d see each other every year cause of the Vytal Festival, but that’s still a what, seven month wait in between visits?”

And then that just reminded Blake of the fact that the tournament was almost over, and that soon after the kids from the other academies would be returning home.

“I can’t believe you’re really leaving in a week and a half,” she said, trying her best not to sound upset and failing spectacularly.

“Aw, Blake,” said Sun. He laughed and let her hug him, wrapping his arms around her body tightly. “Don’t worry! I’ll call every once in a while. As long as you’re not too busy banging your three super cute girlfriends.”

“Sun!”

“I’ll have you know that the only reason why more people haven’t caught on to your little love fest is because there’s four of you in the relationship,” Sun told her, still laughing, even as she grumbled into his chest. “Now that I know, I realized something. None of you are slick. At all.”

“I regret telling you about this,” said Blake.

“No you don’t,” Sun responded in a singsong voice.

Blake eventually let go of Sun, having half a mind to just bolt from the table and leave him in the dust. After a while her scroll buzzed. She pulled it out to check the message.

“I have to go,” she told him, standing up from the table. “Ruby’s hosting an emergency team training session.”

“Tell her not to bother because we’re gonna kick your ass anyway,” said Sun.

“No,” said Blake. She grinned at him. “I’ll catch you later, Sun. Thank you for everything.”

 

* * *

 

Blake dodged one of Weiss’s attacks and then tried one of her own, but Weiss neatly blocked her strike. Earlier she had knocked Blake’s sheath out of her left hand. It was proving kind of difficult to keep up while one entire blade short.

“You left your side exposed here,” Weiss said in a low voice, effortlessly pausing in their sparring so she could take Blake’s arm and gently reposition her. “I could have easily taken advantage of the weaker defense.”

“I usually have my other blade for that,” Blake responded, trying to sound miffed, but having Weiss in such close proximity didn’t help matters.

“Ah.” Weiss spared a quick glance behind her, where Blake’s sheath was still lying on the ground. Then she turned back around and smiled. “Maybe you should try getting it back, then?”

“Good idea,” said Blake, smiling back.

Over on the other side of the room, Ruby and Yang were yelling at each other, duking it out in full force. Half of the floor around them was on fire. The other half was riddled with bullet holes.

“You should focus more,” said Weiss.

“I am focused,” Blake told her. She laughed and summoned a clone to tank Weiss’s next swing. “Someone’s been acting kind of cocky today.”

Weiss just smiled and tilted her head. “I wonder why.”

The next thing she knew, Blake was on the ground on her back, pinned in place by a gravity glyph underneath her and Weiss above her. Weiss reached forward and tugged Blake’s katana out of her hand, tossing it aside. 

“I guess I deserved that,” said Blake.

Weiss was breathing a little heavily. Her ponytail cascaded down to the side, and Blake could feel it brushing against her shoulder.

They stared at each other.

Then Blake heard Yang shout out and come hurtling through the air towards them. With barely a second to spare she summoned all her energy, pushing off the ground with the help of a clone and switching her and Weiss’s positions just in time to protect her from getting hit. Which meant that Yang crashed right into Blake instead, and the two of them went tumbling across the floor.

She could feel Yang wrap her arms protectively around her, trying to cushion most of the fall. “Shit,” she was saying, laughing as they rolled a bit further. “Sorry. Shit.”

“Jeez,” Blake said when they finally came to a halt, lying side by side on the ground. “You almost turned Weiss into a pancake.”

“My bad, my bad,” said Yang. She wasn’t moving, just continuing to hold Blake close. Her chest rose and fell from the exertion of the sparring. “Wait, no. Not my bad. That was definitely all Ruby’s fault.”

“No it wasn’t,” Ruby called from across the room. In a show of solidarity she put her weapon away and then walked over to lie down on the ground next to Blake and Yang. Weiss sat up just so she could scoot closer, and the four of them lay in a heap together for a while. 

It shouldn’t have felt so nice, because the floor was cold and rough and hard. But somehow it still did.

“There’s no way we’re losing to Team SSSN in the finals,” said Yang. “I mean, come on. Look how coordinated we are now.”

“So coordinated that we somehow all ended up on the ground after knocking into each other?” said Weiss.

“It was totally coordinated,” said Ruby. “Me and Yang thought it was about time for a break. This was all planned from the start.” She high-fived Yang’s outstretched hand. Blake laughed and Weiss just sighed.

Eventually Blake felt her heart rate go back to normal. She still felt sweaty and gross, and the collective post-exercise body heat of all four of them together was starting to get a little stifling, but no one moved. 

It was Weiss who finally broke the silence after a bit.

“Hey guys?” she said, sounding hesitant. When the rest of them made various noises of acknowledgement, she continued on. “Do you remember that thing I did at the mine?”

“What thing?” said Yang.

“You know, the thing. The arm thing.” She sat up slowly, looking deep in thought. “Oh, you might not have seen it, Yang. I think you were unconscious when it happened.”

Yang sat up as well, bringing Blake along with her. Ruby followed them shortly after. “Well now I want to know what it is,” said Yang.

“It’s called summoning,” Weiss explained, staring down at her hands in her lap. “It’s a part of my semblance, but up until the mine I had never managed to successfully do it. Even then, I was only able to summon partially, but… I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”

“You think you could do it again now?” Ruby asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Weiss. “That’s what I’m wondering, too. I don’t even know how I managed to do it at the mine. I just—I just remember seeing you three in danger and wanting more than anything to stop it.”

They all got up after that, and Blake stayed next to Yang and Ruby while Weiss went to stand across from them, taking a deep breath and gripping Myrtenaster tightly in her hand. Yang was watching with open curiosity in her expression.

A second passed. Then another.

Then Weiss raised her rapier, did a small twirl, and stabbed the tip of the blade into the ground.

A large light blue glyph came to life on the ground in between them, spinning and pulsing with bright energy. Weiss had her eyes closed, frowning in concentration. Gradually, the hilt of the glowing sword began to rise up out of the glyph.

“Wow,” Yang said in awe.

Blake silently agreed. Even though she’d already seen it happen back at the mine, there was just something so captivating about the sight.

But then after a few moments, the glyph stopped spinning. The sword stopped moving. Weiss’s face twisted in frustration. “I can’t make it form any further,” she said. She sounded incredibly disappointed in herself. “I can’t believe—ugh, no. I should have known it had just been a fluke back there.”

“Hey,” said Ruby, taking a step forward. “You still managed to summon something. This is still amazing.”

Weiss didn’t seem convinced. She rubbed at her face with one hand. “No, it’s fine,” she said, trying her best to keep the frustration out of her voice. She stared down at the sword in the glyph, only the hilt and part of the blade sticking up out of the ground. “I just need to practice it more, that’s all. I don’t know why I thought I could do it again. I’m a fool.”

“Weiss,” Blake said, automatically making her way around the glyph to get closer to Weiss. “It’s okay. You’re so hard on yourself.” She spread her arms and Weiss walked right into them, burying her face into Blake’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you that you can even do what you’ve done right here. We all are.”

Yang, meanwhile, was looking down at the sword thoughtfully. Blake glanced over at her, confused, which made Weiss look as well. 

Then Yang stepped forward, knelt down in front of the sword, and rested her hands atop the hilt, bowing her head in front of Weiss. 

“Oh my god,” said Weiss, embarrassed.

Yang just looked up into Weiss’s eyes, grinning that happy little grin of hers, her expression so loving and earnest. 

“Your Majesty,” she said.

Weiss didn’t appear to have any words left to respond to that. She went right back to hiding in Blake’s arms. It felt like she was trying to shrink in on herself, and Blake had to struggle to not start laughing.

“Yang, you’re doing this all backwards,” Ruby said, joining in the action with a silly grin. “You have to get knighted first before you can be all chivalrous and stuff.” She hopped over to join Weiss and Blake. “Weiss, you _do_ know how to knight someone, right?”

“Ruby, please,” Weiss responded, still not looking up.

Blake dutifully stepped aside so Ruby could sneak up behind Weiss, wrapping one arm around her waist while her other hand curled around Weiss’s wrist. Weiss already looked resigned to their antics, and let Ruby lift her sword hand around to get the rapier’s tip to rest on Yang’s right shoulder.

“Now you gotta tell her to swear some things,” Ruby explained.

“The green beans in the mess hall taste like shit,” said Yang.

“Not that kind of swear, stupid,” said Ruby, but she was smiling. “Like, I dunno. ‘I swear to always be devoted to Weiss forever and stuff. I swear to be brave and defend those who can’t defend themselves. I swear to always give Ruby Rose a portion of my dessert at dinnertime.’”

“Absolutely not,” said Yang.

“And there you have it,” Ruby said proudly. She lifted Weiss’s hand again and moved Myrtenaster to Yang’s other shoulder. “Now Yang is officially your loyal knight.”

“Ruby, I’m pretty sure this isn’t how you knight someone,” said Weiss.

“That’s because she forgot the most important part,” Blake pitched in, grinning.

“I did?” said Ruby, confused.

“Yeah.” Blake walked up to Yang and bent down to leave a kiss on her forehead. “You have to seal the deal with a kiss.”

“Oh, duh.” Ruby finally let go of Weiss so she could go up to Yang as well and kiss her quickly on the forehead. Then she moved to stand next to Blake. All three of them looked at Weiss expectantly.

Weiss just stared back.

“Come on, Weiss,” Yang said with a small smile. “I can’t be a proper knight without a kiss from the queen herself, right?”

Weiss let out a sigh. “You three are insane and I don’t know why I still hang out with you all,” she said while walking towards Yang. She paused for a split second in front of her, then made up her mind and tilted Yang’s head up before leaning down to kiss her full on the lips. 

“Cause you love us,” Yang said when they broke apart, a big dumb grin on her face.

“Don’t push it,” said Weiss, smoothing out her shirt as she stood up again. Then she lowered her voice. “…Thank you.”

Yang stood up as well, and the sword and glyph dissolved into the air underneath her. She tapped Weiss on the side of her head, smiling fondly down at her. “Just take that voice in your head, the one that’s telling you that you suck, and replace it with us. We’re all cheering you on, every step of the way.” She paused. “Or annoying the crap out of you. Depends on the time of day, probably.”

Weiss rolled her eyes and tried not to smile at that. “Somehow, the idea of having little mental versions of you three causing a ruckus in my head is strangely comforting,” she said.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to any of us,” said Blake.

“You be quiet,” Weiss said. Her smile was out in full force by now. “Now are we going to get back to sparring or what?”

“For sure,” said Yang, walking over to Ruby and smacking the back of her hand against Ruby’s chest. “Come on, sis. Let’s do a tag team match. You and me against Weiss and Blake. Winners get to make out with everyone on the losing team.”

“Are you aware that there is literally no downside to those rules for any of us?” Blake asked her.

“Yep,” Yang said cheerfully. “I’m nice like that.” 

Blake laughed.

She and Weiss ended up winning, but just barely. By then the four of them were all too exhausted to follow through with the promised reward. But leaning up against the training room wall, with Yang and Weiss slumped on either side of her and Ruby sprawled across her lap, Blake figured that stuff like this was just as good.


End file.
